A Gamer's Guide to the Underworld
by Roguehunter11
Summary: AU. Because Argo is far too devious to be human and Kirito is doomed to forever be pulled into dangerous and unbelievable circumstances for as long as he lives.
1. Chapter 1

_Regarding Canon:_

 _This is AU_

 _I just want this to be clear coming out of the gate. This Will_ _ **NOT**_ _follow Sword Art Online canon. While some aspects will remain constant with it a large portion of it will be changed for the sake of my idea for this story. While I won't reveal all the differences as of yet but, I will tell you that Kirito did_ _ **NOT**_ _get into a relationship with Asuna during the events of Sword art online, although she does have the same feelings for him as in Canon. Kirito also had a closer relationship with Argo and other individuals who may or may not have been in SAO in Canon (as in they came in later, not that they're OCs). The events of the Fairy Dance Arc did happen (with some changes) but Kirito, rather than going in solely for Asuna, went into ALO because several of his friends were trapped within. On a side note Kirito still met Yui and went through a similar series of events although by himself so while Yui will still refer to Kirito as her father, she will not refer to anyone as her mother._

 _Speaking of Yui, I intend to make it so that AI's of Yui's level are still a pipe dream for everyone else as the only reason she became as advanced as she is was through the piling up of errors and the like resulting in a change._

* * *

Two figures could be seen together in a room, one was sitting up in bed staring at the other with a deadpan face whilst said other leaned casually up against a wall.

"So let me see if I got this straight" the figure on the bed began "you're a devil, specifically a high class one from the house of Marchosias".

"Yep, I'm the heiress in fact" the other responded.

"And back at the hospital, after I let him live, that asshole Sugou pulled a gun on me and shot me in the back, killing me."

"Four shots point blank, tore through your lungs and several of your arteries, you died basically instantly."

"This was when you arrived, decapitated Sugou, and then proceeded to dispose of his body."

"Yep, I also made the local police think he'd died in an accident and already been buried."

"Right," a sigh "then you proceeded to resurrect me by turning me into a devil, using one of these so called evil pieces, which, while reviving me, simultaneously made me your servant."

"A queen piece specifically and yes, in the eyes of most devils you now belong to me."

"Yeah… as a guy I have mixed feelings on being a queen…and being a servant for that matter."

"Get over it Kii-bou, the queen's the strongest piece you know"

"Still… anyway, so I'm the only person in your peerage currently and the reason you didn't recruit Asuna or the others is because you, along with the Gremory Heiress because polygamy is apparently legal for devils, are currently engaged to an arrogant prick that makes Kibaou look well mannered."

"He's not just arrogant you know, he also a bastard, an worthless sack of shit, a womanizer, and a manwhore, on top of being an ignorant pile of -"

"Okay I get it… and because the underworld isn't exactly as progressive about human, or rather devil, rights as human countries are he could basically do anything he wants with your servants short of badly injuring or killing them and it would be considered completely fine, and since the others are all girls you don't want to risk our friends being turned in that douche-bag's toys."

"I don't want to marry the jackass but I'm not going to drag my friends into something like that, on top of the fact that we only have 6 months before I have my match against Riser deciding if the marriage will be called off or not."

"And to beat Riser you think it's better to have a few really strong people rather than a bunch of somewhat strong people due to the nature of his immortality, which is bullshit by the way, and it's relation to his mental state."

"With him being constantly smashed by superior numbers he'll likely manage to cling on with the idea that if he can just take his opponents out one at a time he'll eventually manage to eliminate all his opponents, if 2 people casually beat the shit out of him over, and over again he'll probably take more mental damage."

"Yeah, and you want me be a center piece in that"

"If someone who's only been a devil for 6 months continually trashes him it'll hit him harder than it would from a more experienced devil, and considering the fact that you're a complete monster that shouldn't be too hard for you."

"I'm not a monster"

"You managed to have the highest reaction time in SAO despite it being populated with a fair few creatures beyond humanity who naturally have reactions times surpassing common sense, even before becoming a devil enhanced it you basically had bullet time Kii-bou."

"That's…"

"Your reaction time was .04 seconds, that's nearly 3 times faster than what was supposed to be the human biological limit Kii-bou, and now that you've become a devil it probably got even faster."

"I… whatever, anyway so we have until about a month after the next school years starts up to reach a level where we can beat the crap out of Riser and his entire peerage."

"You're taking this quite well, most people freak out after they're first reincarnated."

"I felt different the moment I woke up, then with the wing thing and the fact that I know I died means what you're telling me is the truth. After SAO and some of the other shit I had to deal with even this isn't enough to throw me off balance anymore."

"What monstrous adaptive ability"

"Damn it Argo, Will you quit it with that!"

"Now, Now, Kii-bou that's no way to speak to your master, although I don't mind it in private you should still call me Marchosias-sama in public you know" Said devil turned information dealer said cheerily

The Kii-bou in question just gave her a deadpan look before conceding "This is going to get old really fast, but if it's only in public I guess I can deal with it Marchosias-sama." He paused for a moment and then continued "I don't suppose I can convince you not to call me Kii-bou in public can I?" the former beater asked hopefully

"Meh, it'll come and go" Argo replied noncommittally.

"Marchosias-sama it would look bad for your reputation if you referred to a mere servant in such a familiar manner" Kirito spoke in a perfectly subservient manner.

Argo twitched "you only have to do that in public Kii-bou"

"But Marchosias-sama, a mere servant such as myself wouldn't dare act so familiar to your eminent self" Kirito spoke again his tone easily meeting the standards of a high-class butler.

"Okay fine, I'll just call you Kirito when we're with supernatural beings we don't know well okay, just cut it out with the overly respectful stuff in private Kii-bou, I get enough of that as it is" Argo admitted her loss.

Kirito smiled "sure thing Argo, although my real name is Kazuto you know" He noted.

Argo snorted and replied "heh, no it's not"

Kirito blinked "what does that mean?"

"Well I felt it would be too much of a pain so with a touch of memory magic and the power of technology I changed your name to Kirito Kirigaya, with Kazuto being your nickname" Argo explained "all your relatives and everyone who knows you now believe Kirito has been your name since birth" she said casually.

Kirito blinked "okay the fuck Argo, seriously?" Kirito Kirigaya, formerly Kazuto Kirigaya, deadpanned.

"Yep, although memories of events can be a pain to change something like a name is pretty easy to change actually."

After a moment Kirito got up and moved towards his computer booting it up without another word.

"What are you doing" Argo asked curiously

"Hacking the national registry" Kirito replied easily as his computer booted up "easiest way to figure out if you're telling the truth or not"

Argo blinked, "okay even for me it sounds weird for someone to say that's the easiest method. That has national grade security, you know."

As Argo watched Kirito spoke easily into his headset "hey sweetheart could you be a dear and hack the national registry for daddy?"

"Sure thing papa" a voice replied over the speakers as a young fairy with black hair and eyes appeared on one of the 3 monitors hooked up to Kirito's computer "just give me a second."

Argo blinked "ah so that's the AI you met on the lower floors, the system history said she got deleted though."

"I used Yui's remaining admin access to convert her files into an item temporarily before rebuilding her later once we got out of SAO." Kirito explained "Yui came up with the idea that an AI might be able to hack into the remaining 300 nerve gears even if a human couldn't so she's being developing programming to hack basically anything," he continued easily "short of security at the level of a nuclear missile silo she can tear through fire walls like they aren't even there, that's actually how I managed to forcibly log out the remaining 300 players, yourself included, trapped in Alfhiem although I had to get Yui to an access point first."

Argo sweat dropped "Seriously, you're saying that your AI daughter can basically hack anything less secure than a nuclear missile silo?"

"No" Kirito refuted distractedly

"Oh well I was going to say-" Argo began sounding slightly relieved

"She could hack those too, it would just take her a few hours and there'd be a 50-50 chance of her getting caught and traced back here" Kirito finished causally as he examined his person information on the national registry that Yui had brought up for him "well shit, you actually changed my name! That's pretty ridiculous, devils really don't need to follow common sense do they."

Argo just stared at him for a moment "I don't want to hear that from you" she deadpanned "any way yeah, your name's Kirito now so just deal with it."

Kirito paused for a moment frowning "I guess it's since I lived by it for like 2 and a half years but I don't really care as a much as I thought I would."

"well moving on, I mesmerized your family to think you're going on a long term live-in cram school for the rest of this school year and most of summer break to help you catch up on what you missed while you were trapped in SAO, so we're going to be going to my private villa for a training montage" Argo stated easily.

"Speaking of which how strong are you anyway?" Kirito asked "I mean I know you've done nothing in terms of training for like 3 years during the SAO and Alfhiem online incidents and all but how strong are you."

Argo suddenly looked a strange cross between angry and embarrassed before speaking "I'm probably only at the level of an above average mid-class devil at the moment" she said sounding spiteful "my family doesn't have any special innate powers, but we do have our own unique fighting style and a bunch of special techniques, if I was allowed to learn them I could probably trash Riser by myself."

"What do you mean if you were allowed?" Kirito asked

"This whole engagement thing is something my parents put forth, when I resisted it on top of giving me the time limit for a match against Riser to make the final decision they also told me they wouldn't teach me any of our family's techniques until I agreed or otherwise had my match against Riser" She explained frowning "if it was the me now i could have probably dealt with it somehow without it degrading to this point but they set the whole thing in motion when i was like 8.

"Okay so we just got to keep it simple then, judging by what you've told me of him, Riser probably hasn't trained a day in his life so with 6 months of intense training we might be able to catch up." Kirito decided.

"You do know I'm the master here right? I'm supposed to make the decisions" she complained even as Kirito ignored her.

"You said that large part of a devil's physical ability is mental and since my mentality can already access beyond human strength due to my time in SAO" he spoke reaching over and lifting up his entire bed with one hand to prove his point "I should probably focus on my basic stats rather than magic, from what you told me Riser's queen possesses primarily area-of-effect magic attacks so the best way to not get hit is to stay in super close combat with the rest of Riser's peerage until I down them and then rush her with some fancy flying" Kirito mused to himself.

"Yeah that would probably work, Yubelluna is a bit of a bitch but from what I've gathered she cares enough about the other members of Riser's peerage that she would avoid blowing them up just to get at you" Argo agreed unconsciously before blinking. "Hey did you not hear me? I'm the master here I should be the one coming up with the strategies" she complained as Kirito once again ignored her "Kii-bou! Kii-booouu!" she whined

"As for you" Kirito glanced at Argo "if you intend to keep using claws you should probably focus on your speed and evasion rather than weapon techniques and when the time comes continually attack Riser's eyes with relatively straightforward and visible attacks" He advised. "even if they heal, that split second of blindness mixed with the trauma that would be developed with having one's eyes cut out constantly should be enough to deal some serious psychological damage, especially if we can get him to associate that with your claws."

"Ooh, that's good" Argo agreed completely forgetting her earlier complaints "I especially like the part when I claw his eyes out" she complemented.

"So were going to the villa tomorrow so you should get back to the place you're renting and get some sleep, we've got intensive training to do starting tomorrow, am I clear?" Kirito commanded easily.

"crystal" Argo agreed seemingly oblivious to the shift in the conversation "I'll head back now" she said heading towards the door out of Kirito's room before freezing "hhhheeeeeeyyy" she complained "I'm the master! Why are you acting like I'm your servant!" she whined.

"I don't know, why are you acting like I'm the master?" Kirito shot back easily "Seriously you make it way too easy for me to do that."

"It's not my fault Mr. Guild Master" she complained "you and your annoyingly overwhelming commanding aura has brainwashed me, and the rest of the guild for that matter, into basically following your orders by reflex" Argo accused.

"Your exaggerating, it's not like I was doing anything besides giving out orders during raids back then you know" Kirito replied rejecting her claim without a second thought.

"haa, whatever" Argo gave up "I'm going to enjoy beating the crap out of you for the next 6 months in training," she stated causally "I mean even with you being you there's no way you can close the gap between 2 whole classifications and whatever progress I make in 6 months after all."

* * *

 **4 months later**

"You have got to be fucking kidding me!" Argo complained dashing to the side with speed easily on par with that of a high class devil only to have her arm gripped and yanked forward, sending her flying into the outside wall of her villa's training field.

Her opponent, who moved with speed just above Argo's own, simply grinned at her "I had a bit of a break through with the belief aspect of my physical abilities last night," He said cheerily "I hate to say it Marchosias-sama, but it looks like I've surpassed you" he finished cheekily.

"Monster" Argo complained

Kirito twitched "I said stop it with that!" he complained

"Stop with what? Monster-kun" Argo teased recovering like she hadn't just been thrown at a wall at breakneck (for a human anyway) speeds "I mean seriously, reaching the level of a high class devil barely 4 months after being reincarnated despite possessing no sacred gear, really is something only a monster could accomplish ya know, even with a queen piece"

Since entering the underworld 4 months ago and entering Argo's private villa (nearly devoid of servants as a result of yet another of her parents attempts to get her to accept her marriage with Riser) Kirito had grown at a downright terrify rate. Without the restrictions of having to level up to get stronger and motivated by his desire to help his friend and master escape from a fate she so desperately wanted to avoid Kirito had trained nonstop for the last 4 months. Were it not for his new devil physiology he would have probably died from sleep deprivation somewhere during week 2 and as it was he only got 1 or 2 hours of sleep a day, relying on his impressive reserves of demonic energy to keep his body and mind in peak condition.

In response to Argo's teasing Kirito suddenly smiled demonically "Of course since a good portion of Riser's peerage use weapons we should make sure you have the proper movements to dodge and defend against say, long swords for example." He smile stretched a bit more "since you so kindly acquired a proper set of blades for me recently it would be a good idea for me to get used to wielding my new blades at the same time as you getting some experience dealing with weapon users."

Argo paled "N-now there's no need to be hasty my stats are all at least in the bottom of the high-class level, even Riser's Queen won't be able to match me in regards to that." She stuttered 'shit, shit don't go into drill sergeant mode, whatever happens please god *ouch* don't let him go into drill sergeant mode.' She prayed internally ignoring the small spike of pain she received for it.

"That's no reason to be careless" the aura around Kirito thickened, the fact that it was genuine demonic energy rather than an illusion created via killing intent doing nothing to allay Argo's fears, "after all, Marchosias-sama said herself that she wants to avoid that marriage to the extent that she would 'go through any training, no matter how torturous and cruel' in order to get strong enough to cancel the marriage" he said taking a step towards her drawing the until then sheathed swords ominously.

Without a second of hesitation Argo bolted "Kii-booouuu! What the hell, stop iitt! I'm supposed to be the master Kii-bou! Kii-boooouuu!" Her yells retreated into the distance as Kirito chased her relentlessly through the woods just outside Argo's villa.

* * *

 **Later on inside Argo's villa**

After around 4 hours of being chased around by Kirito and his 2 long swords Argo felt vaguely bad for any sword wielding opponent she, and Kirito for that matter, faced in the future. The simple fact was that any swordsman (or woman) she faced in the future that was below high-class in power might as well not be there anymore. Having dealt with and, she acknowledged with a degree of despair, the fact that that she will likely to have to continue to deal with, Kirito 'training' with her meant that all other sword wielding foes would probably eventually just be cannon fodder by comparison.

On the other hand Kirito's dual wielding skills had grown even more overwhelmingly deadly with his insane reflexes being enhanced even further on top of the fact that he had figured out how to coat his swords in demonic energy to emulate the positive aspects of sword-skills without the cool-down times. As a result of the increased power provided by his recreated sword skill system Kirito had gained the ability to cut through all but the most sturdily crafted magic swords with ease. His strength and speed had already far eclipsed the amount he had possessed in SAO and his durability was even more nonsensical, disregarding holy weapons no one with power below a solid mid-class devil could so much as scratch him.

He currently wielded pair of custom made high quality magic swords with a minor demonic attribute imbued into both to give them a bit of extra kick. When Argo was writing the request for a custom order for various weapons and armor she'd had Kirito list what he wanted for his weapons. Since the general rule for weapons was the more enchantments place on a weapon had the less potent each individual enchantment would be Argo had advised him to only select a handful in addition to the demonic attribute. Kirito had, rather predictably, completely ignored most of the fancier enchantments instead selecting high tiered enchantments for durability, sharpness, and heat resistance along with 2 slightly more magic sword like attributes in the form of an enchantment that allowed Kirito to easily channel demonic energy into the blades in addition to one that allowed him to ignore physics by letting him temporarily change the mass of the blades.

Even an average enchanter would be able to imbue a high quality weapon with such simple enchantments with good results and Argo wasn't taking chances with an average enchanter, no she went with a top of the line scarily skilled one with a massive price tag. Of course that sum would only be viewed as being at the level of expensive for an heiress to one of the 72 pillars, well if said heiress wasn't almost completely cut off from her families' funds that is. She had initially been expecting to have to struggle to get enough money to pay for Kirito's swords and her claws and not have enough money left for anything else after than but, in a stroke of genius, Kirito came up with an idea that he still felt vaguely guilty about and money quickly proved to not be a problem. The idea that Kirito had proposed was one the 2 of them had decided to carry out solemnly (or not so solemnly in Argo's case).

So it was that nearly 4 months ago, around a week and a half after Kirito had been resurrected as a devil, they had, with heavy hearts and an apology to day traders and investors everywhere (well, Kirito had, anyway), unleashed Yui on the stock market. Barely 2 weeks later and the $3,000,000 startup fund Argo had provided had bloated into around 97.3 million dollars and continued to grow at a mind numbing pace. As the world's most advanced AI Yui had the capacity to monitor businesses and shifts in the market with a speed and accuracy that completely eclipsed everything else in the modern world allowing her to predict and react to said shifts perfectly. Suffice to say they no longer had any troubles with funding and Argo had decided to spend enough money to buy a few islands to get both of them top of the line weapons and gear that was better than anything short of legendary grade equipment .

Since both of them favored lighter armor Argo eventually ended up putting down nearly 200 million dollars in order to get 2 custom sets of heavily enchanted dragon-hide armor. Even at its bulkiest point the armor wasn't more than 2 centimeters thick and included an enchantment that allowed the armor to transform into regular, albeit nearly indestructible, clothes when necessary. Argo had also included a trench coat and a hooded cloak for Kirito and herself respectively in the set something Kirito had appreciated immensely, especially considering that both could also take the shape of a hoodie on command.

After this she also bought hundreds of books on magic, combat techniques, auxiliary techniques, and a dozen other topics. If something could be useful even in the slightest she bought it and as a result she quickly filled her villa's previously empty library. She'd also ended up hiring a couple of natural born low class devils to partially fill the positions in her villa emptied by her parents going from a grand total of 2 servants all the way up to 13. Granted the villa was still technically understaffed having possessed nearly 100 servants prior to her parents trying to pressure her but it was start.

On a side note even with careless spending to the extent that it would make even members of the 72 pillars flinch Yui had still managed to bring the amount of money they had at their disposal to around 12 billion dollars at which point Kirito had told her to just sustain the account at around that level. Argo was well aware that part of the reason behind this was that Kirito was slightly afraid at how Asuna and the others would react if they were to be resurrected only to find out that Kirito, Yui, and through them Argo, had basically become the Illuminati and as such had decided to stop the growth of his assets before they reached the realm of insanity.

Argo had been slightly disappointed; even if it wouldn't mean much in the supernatural world she still felt it would be amazing to economically control the world. Disregarding the fact that Argo had been intending to try and bankrupt the church systems of all denominations of Christianity because she thought it would be funny, Kirito had found plenty of other reasons to stop his master from attaining economic domination of the non-supernatural world, much to her consternation.

To Argo, Kirito's power was nothing short of monstrous for someone who had been a devil for less than half a year, aside from his physical abilities he possessed reserves of demonic energy than dwarfed her own, admittedly slightly below average for a high class devil, reserves. Argo had no doubt that Kirito was already at the level at which he could single handedly curb stomp Riser's entire peerage, Riser included, in less than an hour. Argo found herself in the interesting situation of not being worried about her would be forced marriage because she was well aware that her badass of a crush (who was far too dense to notice) would be capable of casually curb stomping her would-be husband.

"Ria-chi is going to be soo~ jealous" Argo giggled to herself as she relaxed in her room, finding the distant sounds of Kirito training like the training nut he was strangely calming as she was gently ushered towards sleep.

* * *

 **1 month later**

"Seriously?"

"Yep"

"I died, became a devil, gained enough power to easily destroy a mid-sized city, not to mention more money than I could ever spend and yet I still have to go to school? Seriously the hell is that?"

"Well it's not like I don't get where you're coming from Kii-bou but it's not like we've got anything else to do."

"Well can't really argue with you there, I guess, it is getting pretty boring training for a fight against a foe that I can apparently already smash into the ground." Kirito admitted shrugging slightly.

"Well that and I've taken the liberty of having Asuna, Sinon, Silica, Lizbeth, and Yuuki invited to the same school we will be attending. That said, since they're a bit behind in terms of their educations the remedial courses they're taking won't end until shortly after our match with Riser. They should transfer in about a week after the match at which point I'll recruit them. Of course even if they showed up earlier I probably wouldn't recruit them earlier, mostly because it'll be worse for Riser to lose against two people rather than 7" Kirito's master admitted displaying a semi-sadistic grin as she did so "that's the kind of humiliating loss that'll follow him for decades."

"Wow Argo, I can't believe you're a devil, with such prevailing benevolence one would think you were an angel." Kirito quickly shot out a tsukkomi

"I know right? I'm so forgiving too" Argo agreed easily her expression displaying almost sickening innocence as she did so.

Kirito just deadpanned and shook his head "whatever, anyway what's the name of the school we'll be attending?"

"Kuoh academy" his master responded easily "it's the same school that both Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri are attending. Since the whole town is considered Ria-chi's territory it should be fairly safe, and with the school being backed directly by the Gremory clan it's incredibly high quality for how expensive it is."

"Safety and high level schooling? Shit that sounds terrible" Kirito complained lazily "can't we go somewhere at least slightly exciting with only an above average school system so I can get straight A's without putting any effort in?"

"Shut up you damned fight junky of a child genius" Argo unleashed her own Tsukkomi with lightning speed "anyway, we'll be entering as 2nd year students while Ria-chi will be in her 3rd and final year."

"Okay, how big is the school anyway?" Kirito asked lazily.

"it's fairly big although since it was an all-girls school until just a few years ago there's-" Argo suddenly stopped talking a shocked expression on her face "shit that's right, since there's so many girls there Kii-bou will probably end up getting dragged down the harem route too early!" she shouted as if some horrible future had already been set in stone.

Kirito twitched "Just what the hell kind of person do you think I am?"

"A genius bishounen with an EX-ranked Harem Aura skill that automatically seduces around 80% of the main and side female characters along with roughly 95% of the random background girls that populate the area to make the setting more lifelike" Argo stated in a matter of fact voice "of course if you don't actually interact with said girls the rate drops to around 40%"

Kirito just froze staring at his master before he let his head drop, causing his hair to cover his eyes with a dark shadow.

Argo blinked looking around "was the room always this dark?" she asked nervously "and for that matter why are there random wisps of demonic energy floating everywhere" she continued frightfully looking towards Kirito.

"Why Marchosias-sama" Kirito began his voice somehow simultaneously respectful and soul chillingly terrifying "I didn't realize you had so much energy that such stupid fantasies were running through your head" he continued his entire body now sheathed in a dark aura of demonic energy as he took a single step towards his master.

Argo started laughing nervously "hahahha, now come on Kii-bou I was just joking you know, you don't have to take everything so seriously" she replied taking a step back.

"Now Marchosias-sama," Kirito continued taking a step forward and summoning one of his blades from it's dimensional storage, a trick he'd picked up 2 weeks ago, "as your humble servant it's my duty to ensure that you aren't so high strung that you do something foolish in public, so please allow me to help you work off that excess energy."

Argo took a step back "n-now Kii-bou that won't be necessary" Kirito took another step forward "a-as you master I command you to stop that" she said taking a step backwards.

"Stop what Marchosias-sama? Looking out for your well-being is something I'll do even if you order me not to" Kirito said while displaying a smile so demonic that it would have made the Original Lucifer proud (1) as he started to rapidly walk forward.

"Kii-bou stop it, stop it I say" Argo shouted turning and running "Kii-booouu, Kii-booooouuu stop it, I'm the master damn it so listen to meeeee!" She yelled as she started running full speed away from her pursuing queen.

It should be noted that none of the 13 staff members present in Argo's villa even reacted to the sight of the mousy high class devil being chased by her apparently blood thirsty servant simply because it had become an everyday sight at this point. Most of them had eventually come to the conclusion that despite him technically being a servant Kirito was actually the one in control of that relationship. Incidentally they were completely correct as, unbeknownst to the 2 in question, Argo and Kirito's 'master-servant' relationship had quickly grown to show great similarities to that of the current Lucifer and his queen, albeit with the genders of the king and queen swapped.

* * *

"So remind me again why we're transferring in a week after school started rather than enrolling normally?" Kirito asked bracing himself for a response that would doubtlessly result in the birth of a headache as he walked alongside Argo towards his new school.

"Well firstly school orientation days are stupidly boring and secondly being transferred in is more dramatic and attention grabbing." Argo explained easily "it's a more main-character-like entry to a new school."

Kirito twitched once and then sighed "whatever" he responded instantly giving up "so based on my schedule you've put us in all the exact same classes." He deadpanned

Argo nodded "Well of course," she agreed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world "if I routinely let you out of my sight for long periods of time in a school with this many girls you'd probably inadvertently seduce at least half of the girls you come in contact with" she continued "with my efforts I hope to drop the number of victims to only a tenth of the girls at Kuoh" She explained in a tone akin to a scientist reporting their progress on curing an infectious disease.

A strained expression on his face Kirito turned to his friend and spoke "Seriously? And what the hell do you mean by victims?" he complained

Argo simply grinned and then proceeded to change the subject "Looks like were here" she said cheerily as they turned the corner "Oh and remember while were here my name is Argo Råttadjävulen while we're here rather than Argo Marchosias" She finished in a careless voice despite the numerous other students walking directly next to them.

Kirito just started at her looking stunned before responding in an annoyed tone "Really? That's just the words for rat and devil in Swedish put together, is that really the best fake name you could come up with?" he demanded also ignoring the crowds of students around them.

Argo shrugged "well Ria-tan's my childhood friend, although I haven't seen her in forever, and since she said she was from Scandinavia I decided to just go with it. I mean really, even if someone notices it's not like they're going to realize that I'm actually a devil" She said easily

"True" Kirito admitted

"Also" Argo began looking around at the surrounding students who hadn't so much as given them a strange look "this barrier spell you made that makes it so everything we say and most of what we do can't be perceived by people with magic reserves below a certain level is really convenient."

"I know right?" Kirito grinned as they entered the front gate of the school "as it turns out magic is a lot like programming, so it's not really that hard for me despite the fact that I only started working on it last month. While the belief-based system used by devils is great for raw power, the system used primarily by human mages is a lot better in terms of technique and subtly" He said grinning "This glyph-based system is way better than the language-based one in Alfhiem online."

Argo shook her head before musing wistfully "I remember the days when I was the experienced devil with strength leagues beyond yours and you were a freshly reincarnated and nearly defenseless devil." She sighed "then about 2 weeks passed and I realized you were already at the top level of the low class devil spectrum and that I to step it up or else you'd surpass me, which you then proceeded to do anyway."

Kirito snorted "Once we kick Risers ass you'll get access to your families' special techniques" he said "you know, the super awesome ones you described that only your family can use due to the super-secret ritual required to prepare your body for it, y'know those techniques? If even half of what you've told about those techniques is true you'll probably catch up sooner or later."

"Meh maybe" she paused for a moment "also, and I probably also I should have mentioned it earlier, but don't tell anyone I told you as much as I did about them, my parents might try and have you killed or something" She said offhandedly.

Kirito's somewhat amused looked disappeared as he look at his friend and master "If it's a secret to the degree of killing someone if they learned about it then why the hell did you even tell me?" he complained lightly.

"Well it's not like you're going to use that information against me or anything so I don't think it really matters if you know or not," Argo admitted shrugging "as such I don't particularly have any filter on the things I talk about when it's just the two of us."

Kirito gave her a deadpanned look "I noticed" he said as they approached the office to pick up their official class schedules, as in ones that weren't acquired unofficially before via their status as devils in a devil run school.

Argo frowned slightly "why do I get the feeling we're not talking about the same thing anymore?" she accused.

"I don't know what you're talking about" Kirito refuted "after all I'm in complete agreement about your utter lack of a mental filter".

"Oh shut up Kii-bou" she shot back before approaching the staff member in the office as Kirito swiftly dropped his barrier spell.

"Hello~" Argo greeted the staff member energetically "I'm Argo Råttadjävulen and this is my close friend Kirito Kirigaya we're here to pick up our class schedules." Her tone had changed swiftly from her normal calculating yet mischievous and teasing one to a bubbly, warm and seemingly universally friendly one as if someone had flipped a switch.

That being said Kirito…

"Hello, sorry about her she's just a bit excited about going to a new school" Kirito apologized, smiling gently to the receptionist who seemed a bit overwhelmed by Argo's overly cheerful tone.

…Had changed just as sharply, his laid-back and somewhat snarky attitude having apparently vanished along with his barrier.

The staff member quickly recovered "it's nice to see someone so excited about school, here's your schedules" she said smiling.

Kirito dipped his head politely "Thanks"

"Thanks!" Argo chirped energetically before grabbing Kirito's arm, pressing it against her chest and dragging him out of the office "come on Kii-bou let's get going already!"

The receptionist just smiled lightly as she watched the black haired boy get dragged away by his overly energetic friend "What good kids," she said shaking her head as they left.

* * *

Kirito swiftly recast the barrier spell and instantly commented "I thought you agreed you wouldn't call me Kii-bou in public, Marchosias-sama?"

"now, now Kii-bou I only agreed to do so in the presence of supernatural beings that we don't know personally, meaning that when we're at school or with people I do know it's completely fair game~" she teased.

Kirito just sighed tiredly "Is it really that hard to call me my actual name Argo?"

"Not really, but I think it's more personal to use a nickname" she admitted.

"Whatever" he conceded as they approached their classroom and Kirito once again dropped his barrier lazily.

* * *

"We have 2 new students today" the teacher began only to be interrupted by a bunch of chatter.

A trio of males in the class began fearlessly displaying their peerless perversity once again.

"I hope they're cute girls" a bald ex-jock cried out shamelessly crediting his title as the perverted badly.

"With big breasts too!" a more… direct… preference was shouted out by one Issei Hyoudou aka the Oppai baka

"We'll soon know for sure," the 3rd and final member of the infamous perverted trio stated, pushing up his glasses with one finger and causing them to glint dramatically "No stats can hide from my sight, 3 sizes here we come" finished the one known as the 3-sizes scouter

"Disgusting" a cold comment came from the girl's side.

"I can't believe they even allow them in this school" yet another girl called out ruthlessly.

"Those perverted idiots really are completely worthless aren't they?" a third girl asked rhetorically.

Once the chattering had calmed down the teacher cleared his throat and then spoke "one of the students is a girl and the other is a boy so please greet both of them kindly." He then turned to the door "You can come in now you two."

At his words a cute, somewhat mousy looking girl dragged in an amused looking boy with black hair.

"Hey everybody!" said girl cheered excitably finally letting go of Kirito's arm "My name is Argo Råttadjävulen, my last name's a terrible mouthful so don't worry if you can't remember it!" she chirped "I was born in Scandinavia and only moved here around five years ago but I'm confident in my Japanese!

Kirito shook his slightly, a small smile on his face before he spoke "My name's Kirito Kirigaya, nice to meet you, I was born here in Japan and hope to get along with everyone".

Unfortunately for the black haired devil the gentle smile on his face combined with his high grade bishonen appearance almost instantly made almost all the girls blush and, conversely, all the boys rage internally.

"Does anyone have any questions?" the teacher spoke tiredly well aware of the oncoming response.

"Argo was dragging you along pretty familiarly" a girl named Kiryuu called out "are you dating or something?" she said in a somewhat lewd tone.

Argo blushed before answering for him "n-no, but we've been close friends for a few years now, although I…" she trailed off blushing harder.

Kirito, oblivious to the fact that the blush wasn't entirely faked, looked at her with a raised eyebrow "you what?" he said curiously.

"N-nothing" she denied causing Kirito to sweat drop.

'She's getting way too into this character' he deadpanned internally; completely (and incorrectly) convinced the whole thing was an act.

"Oh ho ho!" the other girl, Kiryuu, called out knowingly "well then let's see your prospects for the future then~" as she finished her sentence her glasses glinted strangely and her grin grew.

"Why do I suddenly feel like I'm being sexually harassed" Kirito said frowning slightly

"Who knows" Kiryuu responded "anyway I'd say you're about 7 ½ maybe 8 inches or so, quite impressive, especially considering your somewhat girly face."

Kirito blinked looking confused for a second as most of the girls in the classroom started blushing and the boys began despairing "Wait what?" Kirito asked, completely out of the loop

* * *

After the class had recovered and promptly ignored Kirito's questioning glances (the boys because they refused to help a goddamn pretty boy and the girls because they thought his slightly confused look was adorable) the questioning continued much in the same way as it had started.

"Argo where are you staying right now?" someone asked

"Ah since we both don't have homes around here Kirito and I are renting an apartment around here" Argo answered with obviously false innocence (to Kirito anyway), her unfortunately accurate answer only served to fan the flame that was the male student's new found hatred for the selectively clueless black haired devil.

* * *

"Why the hell did you come here you goddamn pretty boy!" a random boy yelled at Kirito who looked perplexed but was saved the trouble of answering when a girl stood up and promptly slammed the questioners head into his own desk shutting him up. Kirito waited a moment before raising an eyebrow at the teacher's complete lack of a response to the blatant assault before shrugging and setting it aside.

* * *

"We have another student from Scandinavia here you know" a girl informed Argo cheerfully and was about to continue before Argo bubbled cheerfully

"That's Ria-tan right? She's actually my childhood friend, although I haven't seen her in forever, it's actually the reason we decided to go to this school"

"We?" Kiryuu asked knowingly

"a-ah W-well Kii-bou said he didn't really care which school he went to all that much so we both decided to go here" she admitted shyly

"Kii-bou is it?" Kiryuu asked, grinning a disgusting grin

"Ah Kirito I mean" she said blushing slightly as Kirito internally despaired.

'You lose if you let it get to you, you lose if you let it get to you' said despairing devil chanted in his mind.

* * *

"Do you have any hobbies?" a random girl asked

"Ah yeah, well I've done a few things, while I enjoy gaming I also do martial arts and kendo actually" he admitted.

"Really?" one of the girls said excitedly "We have a kendo club in school, do you want to join?"

Kirito raised his eyebrow in thought "I would, although I have some other stuff going on right now including a part time job of sorts, so I probably won't be able to unfortunately."

The girl looked somewhat disappointed by his answer "well if that's the case it can't be helped"

"Well it's not like its everyday but it's often enough that I'm probably not going to be joining any sports clubs this year, although I might end up joining a club without a compulsory daily attendance" Kirito explained apologetically.

"Well if that's the case why don't you come in once and a while when you can, I could probably show you some things" she said confidently

Kirito smiled "sure, I'll try and pop in when I have the time."

Once the Question and answer session was over they sat down at their desks and class began in earnest.

* * *

"Okay now that class is out for today we can go speak to Ria-tan and Sona-tan to finalize some stuff" Argo commented "Since Ria-tan's club is just a front for her peerage were going to be joining it since it will grant us some additional freedom and whatnot from classes."

"Because hypnotizing people every ten seconds is apparently frowned upon" Kirito deadpanned at Argo "cough, cough, hint, hint."

"Look it was really important we got window seats, it's-" Argo began.

"I really don't want to hear anymore of your anime logic bullshit Argo, I really, really, don't" Kirito emphasized "so do us both a favor and don't hypnotize half our class for some inane reason next time, okay?"

Just as Argo was about to reply a new voice broke into their conversation "ah, so that's what that spike of power was earlier."

Argo looked surprised and turned around to face the person who had just interjected before her face brightened "Sona-tan!" she cheered running up and half tackling the girl "It's been so long!"

Sure enough the student council president, with 2 other people standing next to her stood in the hallway. The two others, who Kirito assumed were members of the student council president's peerage, looked surprised at the random girl who had just tackled their master.

Sona blushed and quickly became flustered "Argo I insist you get off, doing such a thing while other students are watching-" she began only to be interjected by Argo

"Don't worry about it, Kii-bou made up a spell that makes it so whatever we do won't be perceivable to the non-supernaturally aware, well within a certain limit anyway!" she chirped before back up slightly before she grinned mischievously "now let's see how you grew up in other ways" Argo hands began moving in a rather in appropriate direction before a spine chilling voice caused her to freeze shock still, saving Sona from being casually molested by the mousy girl.

"Marchosias-sama" Kirito spoke in a polite yet spine chilling manner "What exactly are you doing?"

At his words Argo, Sona, and the other 2 accompanying the latter froze before Argo was seemingly teleported several feet away from Sona "N-nothing at all Kii-bou, why?" Argo asked laughing nervously.

Kirito raised his eyebrow slightly and his terrifying presence vanished "I'm glad to hear that master" he said smiling peacefully "I mean it would be completely inappropriate for someone of your standing to casually molest one of your peers in public"

"y-yeah," Argo laughed again "t-totally inappropriate" she agreed before growing somewhat serious and looking back at Sona.

"Anyways" she said "as you already know I am attending this school, with my Queen, Mr. Tall, dark, and terrifying over there" Argo explained causing Kirito to gain a slightly twitched in his eye, although whether it was due to being referred to as a queen or Argo's other description of him only he knew "and I've arranged for a few other people I'm going to be recruiting sooner or later to attend this school although they won't be transferring in for a bit and…" she paused smiling genuinely " it's nice to see you again Sona-tan" She finished.

* * *

Having felt a spike of demonic energy a while ago Sona had gone with her Queen and newest Pawn to investigate. She already had inkling or rather a very good idea of who was responsible but she held onto the vague hope that her second childhood friend had somehow matured over the years as she walked through the halls. She turned the corner and found her hopes dashed as she caught the tail end of a comment from the tall dark haired boy who was Argo's Queen.

"So do us both a favor and don't hypnotize half our class for some inane reason next time, okay?" the dark haired boy requested.

With my suspicion confirmed I inadvertently called out "Ah, so that's what that spike of power was earlier."

At my words Argo turned around "Sona-tan!" she cried out happily "it's been so long!" then without care for location my childhood friend, rather predictably in retrospect, half-tackled me in the middle of the hallway without any hesitation.

"Argo I insist you get off, doing such a thing while other students are watching-" I began before being cut off

"Don't worry about it, Kii-bou made up a spell that makes it so whatever we do won't be perceivable to the non-supernaturally aware, well within a certain limit anyway!" Argo chirped as I realized with a start that not a single student was paying us any attention whatsoever. As I was about to resign myself to being sexually harassed by the less sane of my 2 childhood friends a chilling wave of not-quite killing intent crashed down.

It only took me a moment to identify the source as Argo jumped back nervously. After she sputtered out a denial and her Queen stopped letting out his well-controlled pressure, which I noticed with some surprise hadn't affect the normal students around us at all, she was instantly back to normal. She then continued on to finish her greeting in a less sexually invasive manner. Setting the strange relationship between Argo and her Queen aside I spoke, allowing a small smile to cross my face as i did so "It's nice to see you again as well Argo" I said genuinely to my childhood friend "that said your Queen is quite correct that hypnotizing your classmates unnecessarily isn't something I can approve of as Student Council president." I spoke deciding to trust the barrier magic set up by Argo's black haired Queen

Argo looked affronted "But Sona-tan!" she cried "everyone knows that main characters always have window seats!" Argo complained as her Queen shook his head tiredly. Well aware that the number of people who could get Argo to listen to reason was few and far between I decided to make a tactical retreat for the moment and change the subject

"While that is not a valid reason we have other things to attend to at the moment" I began "the rest of my peerage as well as Rias's are going to meet up at the old school building so we can make some introductions and set down some ground rules." I said emphasizing the last part as a stared at Argo pointedly.

Argo just smirked deviously.

* * *

(1) Get it? Lucifer proud? Pride? ba dum tsshh! Okay I'll stop now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey, here's chapter two, but first I want to address a few things.**

 **Some people are worried about Kirito being overpowered or becoming a Mary Sue simply because I said he could steamroll Riser at this point, I think the root of this problem is that people have an overblown estimation of Riser and his peerage's overall power level, which is really not that high. Let's compare his entire peerage (Riser included) against say Kokabiel, forget taking an hour Kokabiel could easily slaughter Riser and his entire peerage in like 30 seconds if he was serious, even then despite his prowess Kokabiel is defeated by Vali so quickly it could be called laughable and Vali himself could have been killed at that point by someone like Sirzechs Lucifer just as easily, etc. etc..**

 **The point I'm trying to make is that the DxD world is comprised of monsters standing above monsters standing above monsters and as such calling Kirito's current level overpowered (when he'd get his ass handed to him by someone like Kokabiel at this point) is like saying that Diodora Astaroth is as strong as Great Red.**

 **Something else I'd like to point out is that Kirito doesn't have a sacred gear or unique racial trait (disregarding the Queen bonus) like almost all the main characters in the DxD world. Kirito doesn't have Issei's boosted gear or Kiba's sword birth and as such can't get a convenient power boost mid fight from unlocking something like a balance break. As of this moment Kirito has nothing that couldn't be attained through sufficient effort and training and although he may get something unique later on (I'm not being mysterious I just simply haven't decided yet) the current him can't somehow double his strength over the course of a 10 day training camp.**

 **The entirety of DxD Canon (or at least the currently translated novels) so far has occurred over a span of time that is less than a year, and all the protagonists have gone from getting their asses kicked by someone like Riser to routinely fighting and eventually beating opponents that could eat Kokabiel for breakfast. If you're complaining about Kirito reaching the level he's at now in 5 months then how exactly do you expect me to have him develop to be strong enough to fight the opponents that appear in the later books without Deus-ex-Machina-ing every 10 seconds or nerfing the hell out of all the enemies after book 4 or so?**

 **In short, Kirito may dominate Riser but that's only because Riser's really not that powerful without his immortality, and all his peerage members are nothing special at the end of the day.**

 **And as for Yui being over powered, let me point out that her hacking has basically no influence whatsoever in the supernatural world. The reason money grants people so much power in modern society is because otherwise most people are about the same individually, sure some might be stronger or smarter but that can only go so far for humans in terms of individual power, even the deadliest man alive in the real world would lose against 1000 untrained idiots in a head to head fight, simply due to sheer overwhelming numbers. In the DxD Universe the entirety of the conventional human race (i.e. not people like Cao Cao) would lose in a fight against Sirzechs Lucifer hands down even if there were 10 billion of them simply due to the sheer disparity in power.**

 **So sure, without the Supernatural aspect of the world Kirito could probably go for world domination with Yui's help, but as it is someone from the supernatural world would notice and either stop him or kill him. In regards to Nukes, so what if Yui can hack 1 missile silo with a 50-50 success rate, Sirzechs Lucifer has enough magic power available to blow up Honshu japan 10 times before having to rest, that's a hella lot more powerful than a handful of nukes, especially since they aren't really an actual threat to any of the major supernatural powers (for example both the underworld and heaven are basically in different dimensions and hence out of nuke range).**

 **Rant/aggressive reassurance over,**

* * *

Kirito stood calmly staring down his three opponents, his dual swords sheathed on his back. Kirito had changed out of his school uniform and into his dragon hide armor which, as a result of Argo's meddling no doubt, strongly resembled the equipment his SAO avatar has possessed on floor 75, the only notable addition he could see was the addition of small metal plates on the backs of both of his gloves. The whole outfit was midnight black, incredibly comfortable and brought about a sense of fond nostalgia to Kirito when he had first seen it.

While Sword Art Online had contained much hardship for him it was none the less an important part of who he was, and he could not bring himself to look back on his time trapped in Aincrad in a negative light. The friends he had made and what he had experienced in SAO were things that he would value for as long as he lived.

Refocusing on his opponents Kirito spoke out easily "ready when you are".

One of his opponents, a blonde haired boy name Kiba, spoke after a moment "Are you sure you want to fight all three of us at once? I know your master was the one who bet you'd win and all, but you've only been a devil for 5 months, while we've all been training for years" The boy warned.

Kirito smiled "while I may have only been a devil for a short time, I've been learning swordsmanship and martial arts since I was very young" he explained aware that Kiba's warning was well meant, if unnecessary, "and I'm a lot stronger than you probably think" he finished.

The boy nodded for a moment before he got into a combat stance, Kirito's other 2 opponents making no move to do the same, clearly convinced Kiba would be capable of defeating Kirito without any assistance. Grinning to himself slightly he decided to not complain and merely make the other 2 regret their halfhearted attitude by kicking their asses.

Aside from the blonde haired knight, Kirito's opponents consisted of a short white hair girl named Koneko who was a rook and a taller black haired girl named Akeno who was a Queen. All of them had been involved in the supernatural world for most of, if not all, of their lives and they clearly believed that Kirito, possessing no sacred gear or apparent special ability, wouldn't be able to beat one of them, let alone all of them.

Allowing his mind to wander for a second before the fight began Kirito took a moment to remember how it was, exactly, that it had ended up being made to duel the other 3 devils in a three on one, fight till you drop, spar.

Although the initial introduction had been friendly enough Argo had inadvertently struck a nerve with her careless attitude towards both Argo and the Gremory heiress's current engagement with Riser. Argo was fully confident that she'd be able to get out of the marriage while the Gremory princess was evidently still agonizing over it. Long story short the whole thing escalated and ended up with the 2 high class devils deciding to solve the problem the old fashion way, with brute force, or in Argo's case, by making him deal with it.

Mentally shaking himself out of his thoughts, Kirito spoke one last time "well, let go then" he commented, officially starting the spar. The second the words left Kirito's mouth the blonde knight dashed forward, the sword in his hand coming down in a slashing motion as he closed the distance between the two in less the a second, clearly intending to end this as quickly as possible.

Without panicking Kirito easily brought his right hand to the side swiftly, batting the flat of his opponent's sword to the side with in almost casual manner with the plate on the back of his fist before stepping into the blonde knight's guard, grabbing his wrist and yanking Kiba towards him before the knight could react. Without missing a beat Kirito swiftly slammed his left hand, held in a fist and brimming with demonic energy, directly into Kiba's stomach as he released his grip on the boy sending him flying back towards his comrades where he landed in a heap groaning. The entire exchange lasted less than 3 seconds as Kiba was sent down for the count with a single blow.

'That's the problem with the knight piece' Kirito mused internally 'their defense is so weak that they seem to often end up as freaking glass cannons.'

* * *

Rias Gremory was having a bad day.

It had started normally enough; she'd gotten up, gone to school and went through her everyday activities before she gathered her peerage to meet up with her childhood friend Argo for the first time in three years, having not seen her since she got caught up in the nasty SAO business. Her meeting with Argo had started off well before taking a turn for the worse. While she had initially assumed Argo was just being Argo and pretending to not be worried about the approaching deadline of her fight against Riser (3 weeks prior to the scheduled date of Rias's own match against him), Rias knew her childhood friend well enough that she quickly realized that Argo was genuinely not worried about it and was simply confident she could get out of it.

That pissed Rias off in the worst of ways, Argo only had one sacred gearless servant that she'd used her Queen piece on and she thought that she could beat Riser without a doubt while Rias had been struggling to pull together a strong peerage for years now and she still knew she was outgunned. To her it seemed Argo was just making light of her problem and all the grief, anger and even despair that Rias had gone through because of her own engagement with that pig Riser, and that infuriated her. Childhood friend or not she was angry enough that when Argo suggested a duel between their respective peerages she accepted instantly, despite the apparently stacked odds. Sona and her peerage had agreed to act as observers and referees and were watching the match from next to Rias and Argo.

When Kiba had made his move across the field to attack Kirito she had been expected the recently reincarnated Queen to go down without that much trouble only to watch in shock as Kiba's attack was batted aside like a fly followed momentarily by the knight himself as he was downed just as easily, flying nearly 100 feet before finally landing in a heap next to the 2 other members of Rias's peerage currently present.

There was a snort from behind her and Rias turned to look at Argo who began to speak in a surprisingly serious tone "The reason I'm so confident I can get out of my marriage with Riser isn't because I'm foolish or arrogant Rias," she said, for once using the Gremory heiress's real name, "it's because Kirito is a freaking monster" Argo deadpanned. Argo glanced at Rias with a unreadable expression for a moment before looking back towards the field at the queen in question "The fact of the matter is that Kirito has already completely surpassed me" she stated causing Rias, along with Sona's peerage (Sona included) to start, before they stared at the mousy girl in shock.

"What!?" Sona cried out her controlled façade breaking for a moment "I thought you said he'd only been aware of the supernatural world for 5 months starting just after you resurrected him!"

"Yep" Argo replied still watching her Queen with an unreadable expression as the boy dashed forward towards his other two opponents who began to attempt a counter attack.

Sona swallowed before speaking again "you mean to tell me that a former human with no sacred gear managed to reach the level of a high class devil in 5 months?" she said shocked.

Argo shook her head before answering "nope" she paused for a moment "he did that in a bit less than 4 months actually," she said shrugging "and hasn't slowed down at all" as if to prove her point Kirito chose this moment to casually overpower Koneko and send her flying across the field into a tree before dodging Akeno's magic with almost mocking ease. Argo grinned before speaking again "If Kirito decided to kill me and go stray I'd be basically powerless to stop him" she said airily "fortunately I don't need to worry since Kirito's been a close friend of mine for about 3 years now, ever since about a week after the start of the SAO incident."

"SAO?" a boy in Sona's peerage cried out suddenly "as in the death game SAO, the one that caused the death of nearly 4 thousand people!?"

"Yeah, because of something Kayaba did to the nerve gears it was just as impossible for a devil to escape the damn things as it was for a human" Argo said shrugging "that's when I really got to know Kirito for real. We'd tentatively known each other during the beta although we we're only acquainted at best back then" she snorted "amusingly enough Kirito was technically my boss for most of that time, considering he was actually my guild master and the de facto commander-in-chief of the front lines during the majority of SAO" she said as Kirito knocked Koneko out with a chop to the back of the neck before moving in to finish off Rias's Queen.

"Wait a minute" the same boy cried out again "you mean that guy's the Black Swordsman that cleared Sword art online!?"

Argo grinned as Kirito blocked Akeno's lighting with his bare hands, deflecting it off to the side and protecting his hands by coating them in a thick aura of demonic energy before landing a solid hit on the back of her neck, mirroring his earlier action against Rias's rook and knocking her out smoothly.

"Yep, even when he was a non-supernaturally involved human, Kirito had flashy enough titles to make any victim of chuunibyou jealous" Argo confirmed "he was «The Black Swordsman», «The Dual Blade Swordsman», and on top of that" she paused as Kirito turned to look at them having defeated all his opponents without so much as drawing his swords "he was Aincrad's own «Black Prince of Annihilation», the undisputed strongest player in the game and the one that killed Kayaba Akihito on the 75th floor and freed more than 6000 people from the death game that was Sword Art Online."

Argo paused for a moment before glancing at the stunned Sona, smirking impishly "well Ms. Referee~ what's the verdict?"

Sona didn't answer for a second, still processing Argo's words, before regaining her composure slightly and speaking "The Winner is Argo Marchosias's Queen" she said distractedly. Argo's grin just grew as she started skipping cheerfully towards her black haired queen without a second thought.

Rias along with Sona and her peerage watched Argo silently as she swiftly neared her queen and started talking to him animatedly, although they couldn't make our exactly what she was saying from where they stood.

They stood for a few more seconds before Sona broke the tense silence "It appears that Argo has gotten her hands on a real monster" she said solemnly "rather than it being a waste to use a Queen piece on someone with no special abilities as I had first thought, it seems the reality is that using anything other than a Queen piece would have just squandered that boy's potential."

To her childhood friend's words, Rias could find no response and, after a moment, merely began walking towards her downed servants to check on their condition.

* * *

It had been a few days since the showdown between Kirito and Rias's peerage members and things had settled down for the most part. Rias's three servants hadn't held any grudges against Kirito and had instead apologized for taking him so lightly, apparently more annoyed at themselves for inadvertently becoming somewhat conceited.

Unfortunately for Kirito, there weren't exactly many places to really let loose in Kuoh (at least with Kirito's level of strength) and as such Kirito had to put his physical training on the backburner, at least in part. He had, as per their request, begun sparring with Rias's peerage members daily, although he had to hold himself back considerably and as such got no real benefit out of it himself. In order to sate, at least in part, his training addiction Kirito focused instead on his magical abilities.

Although he didn't have any real issue with most spells, Kirito leaned towards those that could be channeled or shot using his swords as a catalyst. He was working on incorporating magic with his various sword skills beyond the basic force/ speed enhancement through demonic power that was currently the primary difference between his recreated sword skill system and regular attacks with a sword. Unfortunately he had so far been unsuccessful in channeling a constant current of electricity through his blades without shocking himself in the process, although he had been successful in turning the color of the electricity produced by his sparse collection of electric element spells black rather than the standard pale blue.

When they had noticed the change in his spells the other devil's at Kuoh (aside from Argo who just shook her head knowingly) asked him about how that improved the spell, before everyone (aside from Argo who just laughed) fell over when he admitted that other than turning the magic black it did absolutely nothing to increase or decrease it's combat value whatsoever.

He didn't care what anyone said, black was an awesome color, and it was totally worth spending a few days reworking his spells in order to turn them black.

He had been intending to do the same with his fire based spells before Argo swiftly ordered, for once being serious, him to make no such attempt. He knew his longtime friend turned master well enough to know she wasn't teasing and had a real reason behind the seemingly random order and had agreed although he had also asked why, exactly, it was such a bad idea. Rather than a simple answer he had ended up getting a mini-history after his quirky master went into 'informant mode' as it was commonly referred to by the members of his guild that had belonged to the impromptu round table that represented Kirito's direct subordinates and close friends back in SAO.

"The reason using black flames is a big no-no," Argo had explained "at least for you at this point anyway, is because the most prominent example of black flames in devil culture were those of the original devil, Satan himself, and as such if someone like a freshly reincarnated devil wielded a black flame many of the more old fashion higher ups would get pissed off about it. If it's the natural color of a technique or an effect from a sacred gear then the old coots probably won't get too angry about it but if you simply change the color for no reason they'll probably try and kill you or something."

Argo paused for a moment before back tracking slightly "Satan's black flames were said to be able to devour all types of magic, from holy light to demonic energy," she explained "even a member of the Phoenix clan would be burned to death from it, Satan's flames were, and by many still are, considered to be the strongest in existence and were supposedly feared even by the biblical god himself, hence the reverence our race possesses for black flames" she continued "if you were to reach the level of an Ultimate class devil and then use black flames I think it would be okay; since the old bastards wouldn't see it as some no name weakling, which compared to many of the older generations of devils you still are, shaming our equivalent of a god's signature ability."

Kirito had agreed easily; Argo had, after all, explained enough information on the history of the underworld for Kirito to understand just how much it's denizens held the original devil in reverence. The devils had even gone so far as to refer to the highest position in the underworld with his name, even hundreds of years after his death during most recent war (referred to as the great war) between the 3 factions that officially lasted from 1342 to 1355. The war in question had spanned most of Europe and beyond causing immense damage to all 3 sides and resulting in the deaths of upwards towards 200 million humans before its end; said war was eventually covered up by the supernatural world as a plague, referred to in modern times as the Black Death. This was also used as an excuse to explain the numerous skirmishes that occurred off and on for the next several centuries even after the supposed end of the war before things finally settled into an uneasy 'peace'.

Although that Illuminati-level conspiracy had been a lot to take in, he admitted it would explain why there was no recent record of a war between heaven, the underworld, and the fallen angels despite none of the sides really caring about subtly at the time and the fact that the war had apparently left the world in ruins. History lesson aside Kirito had accepted his master's point and pushed aside figuring out how to shift his flame magic to his preferred color scheme for the time being.

The fact that he had set becoming an Ultimate class devil as one of his long-term goals had absolutely nothing to do with Argo's indication that no one would complain if an Ultimate class devil used black flames, absolutely nothing at all.

Kirito also 'coincidentally' lost most of his interest in fire magic at this point in time for 'unknown' reasons setting it off for the future and redoubling his focus on lightning type magic.

Black lightning was badass by default after all.

* * *

It was the end of the school day and a certain trio was conversing loudly right in front of the school.

"You seriously don't remember her?" a certain pervert cried out in shock towards his equally perverted friends.

"Stop screwing around Issei" on of Issei's friends spoke angrily "as if you would ever manage to get a date with a black haired big breasted beauty" he declared.

Kirito closed his eyes as he leaned against a tree about 50 feet away from the trio of perverts, his superior devil senses allowing him to easily hear the conversation without any effort.

"You guys seriously don't remember what I told you about Yuuma?" Issei spoke his voice genuinely stunned with a small undertone of panic at his friend's words.

"Issei have you playing so many fucking eroges that they've begun to superimpose over your perception of reality?" Issei's other friend accused before frowning "excuse my language," his friend apologized "to say such a thing is to suggest that it is possible to play too many eroges and I would not dare speak such sacrilege."

Kirito couldn't help but sweat drop slightly at this before refocusing. Argo had informed him of Issei's death at the hands of a fallen angel and his subsequent resurrection as Rias Gremory's pawn. Argo had told Kirito to keep an eye on Issei until Rias had a chance to explain to the pervert about his recently acquired devil-hood as a favor to the crimson haired heiress. Although Rias would have had one of her peerage members do it, the fact was that they were simply too well known amongst their peers to perform covert actions and Kirito, despite his similar fame, was much better suited to such a task thanks to his ability to make himself unperceivable to the non-supernaturally aware. Although at this point Issei would be able to see him without trouble thanks to his newfound status as a devil, to almost everyone else he was effectively invisible and following Issei and his friends was a breeze, especially considering his stealth skill were fairly good anyway.

Issei eventually separated from his friends as they headed home before he dropped his lackadaisical façade, worry once again overwhelming his normally carefree expression. Kirito personally felt that the Gremory heiress should have just explained the whole thing to him off the bat instead of waiting for a few days. He felt that waiting would simply cause damage to the pervert's sanity more than anything else. If Argo had resurrected him and wandered off for a while before he woke up and waited to explain the whole devil thing to Kirito he would probably have thought he was going insane or something considering his rather vivid memory of dying, or rather, of being killed.

Alas Kirito wasn't a high class devil, he was just a simple teenager who just so happened to turn nearly 100 undisciplined gamers into elite clearers that he had lead in escaping a madman's death game, it's not like he had any experience with being in command or dealing with people who were going through harsh times or anything, and as such his opinion was understandably ignored in favor of the Gremory princess's massive wealth of experience.

On an unrelated, forth wall breaking side note, it's truly tragic that sarcasm doesn't visibly translate into text very well.

Kirito's unvoiced annoyance at the crimson haired devil's decision aside, he continued to keep an eye on his classmate until the boy had made it home safely and without incident before slipping into a tree nearby and settling in to wait. While Issei should be safe at home it's not like he was chained there or anything, and Kirito had to watch over him in the event that he went out to buy eroges or something.

Kirito sighed slightly; this was not how he had wanted to spend his time for the next few days and with another flare of anger at his master's red haired childhood friend he resigned himself to a boring stakeout. In his boredom he vaguely wonder if this was the Gremory heiress's way of getting back at him, as while her peerage members hadn't held a grudge, Kirito had gotten an impression that the red haired high class devil might be somewhat bitter about his single handed beat down of her entire peerage.

Sighing to himself again Kirito decided to use this time to practice suppressing his demonic aura and general presence more efficiently to prevent detection by those with sensory skills.

* * *

Fortunately for the fight junky that was Argo Marchosias's Queen his temporary status as Issei Hyoudou's bodyguard wasn't as eventless or extensive as he had first believed it would be.

This statement was proven rather clearly by the sight of Kirito casually holding a trench coat wearing fallen angel's arm back from impaling his charge with a light spear. The charge in question had fallen on his ass and was currently staring between the light spear roughly a foot away from his face and his 'goddamn pretty boy' of a classmate.

Without waiting for the fallen angel to recover Kirito yanked the fallen's arm behind his back before throwing the fallen angel away from his pervert of a classmate. Eyeing the fallen angel lazily, Kirito spoke in an accusatory tone "what in Lucifer's name do you think you're doing here fallen?" Kirito spat, he didn't necessarily hate fallen angels but watching the fallen in front of him prepare to casually murder Issei with such half-ass reasons hadn't really painted the fallen in very good light, even if he disregarded the fact that they had previously killed Issei simply for possessing a sacred gear.

The fallen scowled at him before replying "just dealing with a stray" he lied blatantly causing Kirito's blood to boil.

"Oh really," Kirito replied "and how exactly do you know he's a stray?" Kirito spoke sarcastically "because he's not, in case you haven't realized it yet" he spoke caustically.

The fallen angel's expression grew darker "he isn't?" he spoke with sarcastic surprise "oh dear, I appear to have made a mistake, oh well" he spoke darkly.

Kirito glared at the fallen releasing killing intent as he spoke "I'm only going to say this once fallen," he began as the man began sweating "fuck off".

The fallen looked like he was going to comply for a moment before he seemed to shake off Kirito's killing intent and replied aggressively "Considering all of the high class devils in this town are girls, you clearly aren't one, even if you talk a big talk a filthy reincarnated low-class devil like yourself doesn't stand a chance against a pure blooded fallen angel like myself" he proclaimed arrogantly "even if you threaten me, say I decide to kill you both, what are you going to do about it?"

Kirito opened his mouth to reply before his showdown with the trench coat wearing fallen angel was interrupted by arrival of a familiar group of teenagers.

"He doesn't have to do anything," the familiar voice of Kirito's master replied in his stead "as much fun as it would be watching Kirito string you up by your wings, if you try anything I'll rip you to shreds myself, assuming Rias doesn't beat me to it" The Marchosias heiress threatened, her normally cheerful tone set aside as she spoke in a dead serious voice.

Rias stepped forward as Argo finished speaking to speak her own piece "not only are you trespassing on my territory but you dare attempt to kill a member of my peerage, and on top of that threaten to kill a member of another high class devil's peerage so blatantly?" she spoke angrily.

The fallen, clearly realizing he was at a disadvantage, grimaced before glaring at Kirito and speaking in a threatening tone "this isn't over boy, my name is Dohnaseek, and if we ever meet on the battlefield I will be the last person you ever see."

Kirito simply raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed "whatever you say you stereotypical early-game thug type character" he deadpanned, to the fallen's clear confusion.

The fallen glared at Kirito again before flying off.

Kirito waited for a moment before glancing back at Issei. The boy was staring at the departing fallen angel before looking back at Kirito and then towards Argo and Rias his eyes stopping on Rias's sizable bust, resulting in Kirito sweat dropping at the boy's over whelming perversity before glancing back at his master and speaking hopefully "does this mean I'm off babysitting duty?"

Argo snorted and nodded "yeah, Ria-tan'l have to explain everything now no matter what, so you don't have to play bodyguard any more Kii-bou" she spoke, her serious tone evaporating with the disappearance of the fallen angel.

Kirito grinned at the reclamation of his free time before his internal celebration was interrupted by Issei, who had apparently recovered from his near death experience and pulled his gaze (temporarily at least) away from the Gremory heiress's sizable breasts "what the hell was that!" the pervert shouted "that guy just tried to killed me and then you just freaking teleport or something and grabbed his arm and threw him like 20 feet" Issei began directing his questions at me "and what in God's" Issei began before cutting off as a sharp pain tore through his and the other surrounding devil's minds.

"Don't use that word" Kirito deadpanned "or anything relating to the bible, it'll save all of us from countless headaches" he explained "and as for what that was, well you should ask your new master about that,"

* * *

Issei had taken his new status as a devil surprisingly well, although that may have had more to do with the fact that devil's accepted polygamy than anything else. Almost as quickly as he accepted his new found devil-hood another conclusion was reached about Issei Hyoudou, his basic stats sucked. With nearly nonexistent reserves of demonic energy, low physical ability, and no combat skills to speak of Kirito was stunned that Issei had cost the Gremory heiress all 8 of her pawns to reincarnate, hinting towards an incredible sacred gear.

Kirito himself had technically cost the equivalent of 7 pawns as a minimum value for resurrection, something that stunned the other two high class devils attending Kuoh when Argo had told them. While the number by itself was already exceptional, the fact that he had cost that much despite being a human with no sacred gear or supernatural background was apparently downright insane. Argo had actually been intending to reincarnate Kirito as her knight due to his slight preference towards speed but was unable to when she discovered that even both her knight pieces weren't enough to resurrect Kirito. After calming down and checking the point value required to revive Kirito (something Argo had apparently initially neglected in her rush to revive him) she had, without hesitation, instantly used her queen piece and not looked back.

A common misunderstanding with the value system of the evil piece system was that the cost directly translated to the current power of the one about to be resurrected in relation to that of said soon-to-be devil's future master. While the current power of the master was taken into effect the evil pieces focused primarily on the potential of the one about to be resurrected more than their current power, to reach a value of 7 evil pieces even with no sacred gear was the first tell of Kirito's absurd potential and growth rate.

Kirito had known about his cost since about a week after his death and subsequent resurrection and as such showed no surprised at Argo's revelation. The poleaxed expressions on the faces of the devils attending the academy (disregarding Argo who simply had a troll face and Issei who had no idea what was going on) were downright hilarious, sufficiently so that he hadn't stopped Argo from covertly taking a photo of the moment (which was currently hung proudly in the living room of Argo and Kirito's massive apartment) nor had he so much as given her a half-hearted glare for her actions.

Kirito had particular enjoyed the expression on the face of one of the student council president's pawn, Saji if he recalled correctly, who had just minutes prior been downright bragging about his own cost, which was less than both Kirito and Issei's. Although the other devils (aside from Issei) had seen his or participated in his match against Rias's 3 servants none of them had expected his value to be even half as much as it was.

Almost as amusing as this was Issei's reaction to finding out that the somewhat girly incredibly gentle and polite boy referred to as Kuoh academy's second prince was actually a somewhat snarky prodigal badass that could scare the shit out of almost anyone when he tried. He had been equally shocked that Kirito's 'close friend' Argo, viewed a universally happy, innocent, and somewhat naïve girl, was actually a teasing mastermind-type genius with a high affinity towards blackmailing and a tendency to attempt to casually molest any girl that got too close to her wandering hands when not in the presence of Kirito (in which case she would try and grope him instead). Issei had been flat-out told by Rias to ignore the strange relationship between Argo and Kirito; having given up on understanding it herself in a matter of days.

With Argo's match against Riser's peerage barely more than 2 weeks away Kirito was starting to get impatient, wanting to get it over with already so they could, as Argo had so apply put it, 'advance the damn plot already'. Argo's semi-obsession with anime aside, Kirito was bored and the odds of anything interesting happening in the next few weeks was unfortunately low, low to the extent that Kirito got the idea to take the mostly peaceful atmosphere and try to 'jinx it and trigger a flag or something'.

While some might question the sanity behind act of attempting to deliberately trying to jinx something generally viewed as positive Kirito couldn't care less, "besides" Kirito would later tell Argo, completely unrepentant, "it worked didn't it?"


	3. Chapter 3

**About Kirito costing 7 points and the Queen pieces having a value of 9, I am aware the Queen is worth 9 but what I was saying last chapter is that Kirito's minimum cost for resurrection was 7, so he would require at least 7 pawns worth to be resurrected, Argo just so happened to use something with a value of 9, but his** _ **minimum**_ **cost to be resurrected was still 7, not 9.**

 **As for the others of Kirito Guild, most of them will be introduced later, one way or another, with a few interesting circumstances that I have, extremely vaguely, hinted at in such a manner all you puny mortals (lol) won't notice until after the reveal (that said if wasn't the one writing this I wouldn't know either) but take comfort in the fact that Kirito's just in the dark as you are my dear readers.**

 **Incidentally if you try and guess just what said interesting circumstances are in your reviews I will either not respond, or respond in such a trollish and nonsensical manner that the laws of physics will break and you'll be falling left off the ceiling before you know it; that said feel free to try, I don't get a huge number of chances to channel my inner Argo after all.**

 **With questionable intent,**

 **roguehunter11**

* * *

Kirito was bored.

The day had started off pretty normally for Kirito; he woke up, dealt with Argo's usual early morning sexual harassment, took a shower, shot a bolt of lightning at Argo when she tried to peek on him while he was showering, made breakfast, used magic to repair the damage cause by his lightning spell, and then got ready for school.

It was just another slow-paced, eventless morning for one Kirito Kirigaya. The fact of the matter was that Kirito was bored as all hell and chomping at the bit for something out of the ordinary to happen. This was made worse by the fact that his classes in school were a breeze and he couldn't exactly practice magic in the middle of class, nor could he do any meaningful training at all during school hours. Lost in his thoughts, Kirito inadvertently started pouting around half-way to school.

"Kii-bou~" Argo sing-songed "stop trying to look like a kicked puppy, would you?" she grinned "can't you last more than 3 days of normal life without getting bored?" she teased.

"Three days my ass, that little 20 second confrontation with that low level trash mob wasn't nearly eventful enough to count as something happening," Kirito complained.

Argo sweat dropped "did you just compare that Chuunibyou fallen angel to grinding fodder?"

"Yes- wait Chuunibyou?" Kirito began before commenting on Argo's own description of the grinding fod- *cough* fallen angel he had met earlier.

"He was wearing a fedora, a trench coat, and an honest to Satan ascot," Argo deadpanned "clearly that guy has watched enough anime that he's adopted a few tropes" she said confidently.

Kirito sweat dropped slightly "or maybe he's just a fan of the classics, I mean it's not like everything originated from anime, you know?" he deadpanned.

Argo turned around affronted "Kirito!" she cried, horrified "how could you say such a thing?" she continued, clearly shocked at his indication that anime was not, in fact, the source of all the tropes in existence "It's even in the bible you know" Argo continued " 'and then the lord gave unto mankind his greatest gift, a gift of which all things descended from, humanity from then on worshipped this gift, known as anime, as the root of civilized culture,'" Argo finished reverently.

Kirito twitched "There is so many things wrong with that that I don't even know where to start retorting," Kirito deadpanned "fucking seriously, you've been a devil all your life Argo, there's no way in hell you've actually read the freaking bible in the first place, and on top of that if that was a real verse then we both have splitting headaches right now" Kirito cried rejecting his master's clouds-for-a-brain comment.

Argo scoffed and looked away "heathen" she griped.

"I'm a devil, sue me" Kirito snarked, giving up on arguing with his master over the apparent divine origin of anime, as he felt his sanity drop slightly from his master's anime-powered idiocy. Disregarding the seemingly random urge to go find a puzzle to solve ***** , Kirito noticed that they had arrived at Kuoh academy.

The two of them nonchalantly dropped into their school personas as Kirito removed his concealment magic.

"Neh, Kirito?" Argo spoke in the bubbly voice that had become a trademark of her school persona "do you have any plans for this afternoon?" she chirped loudly, loud enough in fact, that the students surrounding them heard it word for word.

Internally despairing Kirito knew immediately that his master was going to do something to get back at him for his evident denial of her theory of the universality of anime logic, or whatever the hell she called it.

"Not at the moment" Kirito admitted, his despair hidden flawlessly behind his peaceful expression as he spoke to his 'close friend'.

Argo smiled an innocent smile, innocent enough that of all the surrounding students failed to see what Kirito did, the sinister intention that was impending, inevitable, and unavoidable in the truest sense of the word. Now was about the time when Kirito would normally start chasing Argo around with his swords until she forgot whatever plan she had concocted in the living nightmare she called her imagination, but Kirito couldn't exactly start swinging swords around in the middle of school so he was forced to watch his impending doom, much like a cornered rabbit in the face of a wolf.

Kirito internally shook himself 'how bad could it be?' he reassured himself 'she's only had about 30 seconds to come up with her revenge scheme so it can't be that horrible.'

"That's great!" she bubbled "I was hoping to get some shopping done this afternoon, but since I still don't know this town all that well I was nervous that I'd have to do it by myself and then get lost," she said blushing slightly "I'd feel a lot better if you could come with me Kii-bou" she spoke throwing in his shameful nickname to increase the mental damage.

Kirito froze for a second 'that not as bad as I thought, it's worse!' Kirito glance around in a seemingly casual manner noting that at least a dozen students had heard the entire exchange clearly. If Kirito refused the seemingly embarrassed Argo he would look like a complete douche to the entire student body, but if he agreed he would actually have to go with Argo while she was shopping. While shopping might not seem that bad, it's important to remember who exactly he'd be shopping with; Argo, as shameless as ever, would likely drag him to dozens of stores akin to death for most male teenagers, the sheer embarrassment and mental damage that would stem from Argo inevitably dragging him to every overly girly store and women's underwear shop in all of Kuoh wasn't something he could simply shrug off. On top of that, with funding like Argo's he would definitely end up carrying a small mountain of overly pink bags filled with clothes that Argo would probably never actually wear even once, considering she didn't even really like cutesy clothes all that much, something that would only add to Kirito's shame.

Aware that Argo would likely force it even if he said no here (she was still technically his master after all) Kirito smiled to hide his despair (which Argo saw through with a hidden smirk) and responded in casual tone "Sure, I don't mind" with every word Kirito felt like he was signing his own death warrant as his hellish fate was set in stone.

The smile present on the face of Kirito's master was a hundred times more terrifying to him than any number of life or death battles, even the threat that was laughing coffin now seemed mundane and relaxing in the face of the inevitable wall of death that stood before him. Kirito once again lamented the apparent failure of his attempt to jinx the peaceful atmosphere "Well, it's not like something exciting is actually going to happen in the next two weeks, there's not a single real threat within 50 miles after all" Kirito muttered quietly so that only Argo heard him, Ironically oblivious of the fact that this last phrase did, in fact, jinx the peaceful atmosphere over Kuoh.

Well that or the subsequent events were going to happen anyway, but, in the words of one Argo Marchosias, 'it's a lot easier to just blame Kii-bou for it, it's what we always did back in SAO after all.'

* * *

Roughly 49 ½ miles away from our oblivious protagonist, in a relatively large unused warehouse a gathering of a dozen or so individuals was taking place.

"The entire group is young; in fact the kings are probably only high class devils because they were born into it" a shadowed figure spoke arrogantly with a grin "easy pickings if you ask me."

"He's right, and to top it off there's only about a dozen of them or so, meaning that they don't even have numbers advantage" A second voice spoke up in neutral tone "even counting the other supernaturally involved individuals we shouldn't have a problem, and most of them won't lift a finger let alone risk their lives to protect a group of devils, so it probably won't even be an issue."

"Yeah, besides the payoff is great, and on top of the money we get an invite into the Chaos brigade, and then we can finally leave behind the days of endlessly being hunted down" a third voice agreed enthusiastically.

"I don't know," a doubtful voice interjected "we're talking about abducting 3 high class devil's, 2 of which are the younger siblings of Maou. If we fail we'll be hunted down and killed in a matter of days"

"And what's the alternative?" The first voice spoke again "continuing creeping through the dark like rats, hoping that we don't meet someone or something we can't defeat? Cling onto a hollow life helplessly with no real reason to live except survival? Face it; this is the only chance we've got to actually live again."

After a moment of silence yet another figure spoke up "he's right, ever since I became a stray devil I haven't been able to actually live, just survive, and if abducting a bunch of spoiled brats is the only thing I have to do to live again then forget about having to consider it; you just try and fucking stop me"

The individuals gathered in the warehouse was a group of stray devils who had either run from or killed their masters and had grouped together in order to fend off the exorcists and other devils hunting them down. They had recently received an offer from an organization that had risen to prominence recently, The Chaos Brigade, they had been told that in exchange for the capture of the 3 high class devils in Kuoh, the entire group of stray devils would be accepted into the ranks of the terrorist organization and rewarded generously.

While the group was decently strong, they weren't anything special, in fact even the strongest members only had low S-class strength at best, and such the idea of joining a group suspected to have individuals with power at the level of the ultimate class was an extremely attractive offer. Desperate as they were they never even considered the fact that they were being, and would likely continue to be, treated as expendable pawns by the rather heartless man pulling the strings behind the entire organization. While none of them were stupid per say, they were all desperate, whether they showed it or not, and as such they generally ignored the suspicious aspects of the offer subconsciously, or at the very least didn't think on them too much.

Having taken the following silence as an acceptance of the job, one of the assembled stray devils, who served as their strategist, spoke out calmly "okay then, here's the plan…"

* * *

The school bell rung loudly, something Kirito would normally celebrate internally but which only brought him despair today. While afternoon was a pretty general term Kirito knew Agro was going to get everything she could get out of it and would probably drag him to the shopping district at the literal earliest second possible.

Sure enough, Argo jumped up from her seat cheerfully and packed up he stuff in a flash before skipping up next to him "come on Kii-bou!" she chirped "lets hurry and drop our stuff off back home so we can go shopping" she smiled, with only Kirito seeing the truly malicious intent behind her bubbly words.

Having resigned himself to his unavoidable fate Kirito simply put up a smile "sure, let's go" he replied, managing to keep the despair out of his voice as he did so. They got up and Kirito steadily began activating his concealment spell so they could talk freely. Although it wasn't really a problem when disabling it, if Kirito activated the spell's full effects instantly when people were watching, it would be the same as if he suddenly turned invisible and as such he simply made them less and less perceivable until they were fully hidden from the other students.

"You're evil" Kirito deadpanned once he finished putting up his barrier.

Argo just smiled before throwing his earlier words back right back at him, "I'm a devil," she began, clearly relishing the words, "sue me."

Kirito sighed.

* * *

Without a second thought Kirito stowed the large pile of bags he was carrying in dimensional storage before manifesting his weapons and armor and looking around the empty shopping center warily. Argo, also ready for combat, began analyzing the situation internally without hesitation.

"The hell is this" Kirito began, on guard, "this place was completely full not a minute earlier."

"Basic barrier spell, you probably skimmed over it, but it's the usual go to for supernatural battles" Argo explained distractedly "basically makes the non-supernaturally involved leave the area for one reason or another."

Kirito frowned "which basically means we're surrounded, right?" he deadpanned before laughing echoed throughout the mall in response to his question.

"Indeed, young man, that you are" a voice called out cheerfully "that said, if you put your weapon down and just let us take the girl that enslaved you, we'll be happy to let you go"

Kirito turned coming face to face with a man in a black suit who was grinning arrogantly, pausing for a moment, Kirito replied "yeah, about that, she might be a bit annoying sometimes but not to the extent that I'm just going to sit by and let you and your friends abduct her" Kirito grinned, twirling his swords slightly, "and speaking of your friends they might as well stop hiding already, I know there's 4 others creeping around in the shadows right now."

Laughter echoed around him "well it looks like this one has some pretty good senses, even if his brain is a bit slow" a mocking voice called out "there's 5 of us and 2 of you, and don't even compare our level of experience you little shit".

Argo, who had simply been sizing up the competition until then, snarked "you're right, me and Kirito are going to feel a bit guilty beating up group of weaklings like you, or we would if you weren't a murderous bunch of stray devils interrupting my shopping" she spat out venomously.

"You members of the 72 pillars are always the same, arrogant and assured of their own invincibility" the first stray devil spoke again "at least until you find yourselves alone and outmatched at which point you collapse like a house of cards," the stray spoke spitefully "seeing as you've managed to brainwash your servant over there I guess we'll have to kill him before we abduct you"

Argo snorted disdainfully, "Good luck with that, you're going to need it" she retorted settling into a combat stance alongside her black-themed queen.

With an unspoken signal all 5 of the stray devils burst into action.

* * *

Alec Sven was screwed.

It had been roughly 7 years since he had killed his master and become a stray devil and 14 years before that since he had become a devil. He had joined up with a group of other strays and had kept struggling to survive, growing stronger and stronger until he was strong enough to be considered a slightly below average high class devil. He had initially been very confident that they'd at least be able to abduct the Marchosias heiress without a hitch.

It was supposed to be the easiest part of the mission. 5 of them against one substandard high class devil and her rookie servant, a completely one sided fight, and it was. Of course rather than being on the winning end of this stacked fight he and the 4 other stray devils sent to attack the Marchosias heiress and her servant found themselves getting the crap beaten out of them in a frighteningly casual manner by their target and her shit-your-pants terrifying queen. The Marchosias heiress was a lot stronger than what they had been expecting, although not to the extent that they wouldn't have been able cope with it, no, it was her queen that was the real problem.

Completely at odds with the boy's feminine, almost frail, appearance the black haired boy was a complete monster. His blades lashed out in an absolutely lethal manner that had nearly killed Alec twice within the first 30 seconds of the fight and several times more in the following minutes, even with Alec and the rest of his group casting aside their initial lackadaisical attitudes and putting everything they had and more into the fight it didn't seem to make a difference. If the black haired swordsman's offensive skill wasn't enough, none of them could so much as scratch the monster, he moved with insane grace and reacted to Alec and his group's attacks almost before they'd even gone into motion, to the extent that Alec half though he was reading their minds.

The one and only time an attack had actually connected it had done no damage, the attack in question was a spell shot at the boy that dissipated harmlessly as the boy lazily swiped it into nothing with his bare hand.

That was also around the time that Alec realized how exactly they had survived as long as they had and exactly how screwed he and his fellow stray devils were; the boy had blocked the attack so it wouldn't hit the store behind him. They were so little of a threat that the boy wasn't even toying with them: No, that black haired monster was more concerned with not damaging the shopping mall around him than anything else. Alec had realized with a chill that the blank expression on the boy's face wasn't concentration, it was boredom; that monster was bored even with 5 stray devils, all B-rank and up, trying their absolute hardest to kill him.

These were the last haunting thoughts of Alec Sven, 39 year old A-ranked stray devil, as he struggled desperately against the last opponent he would ever face.

* * *

Argo Marchosias was annoyed.

No, that's wrong; she wasn't annoyed, she was pissed off beyond all hell.

When she first decided to only resurrect Kirito prior to her match with Riser, it had been done because she didn't want to drag her other friends down with her. When it became clear that they actually could, and in fact probably would, manage to win against Riser it had become more about getting closer to Kirito before the others were in the picture. While devils freely allowed polygamy and she herself wasn't largely against sharing, she still wanted to be the first wife. Her shopping trip with Kirito was going to be one of the more advanced steps she had planned out for the few weeks left before the others would show up.

She'd had it all planned out perfectly; they'd go shopping in such a way that Kirito would willing to do almost anything to get out of it, at which point she would, casually, offer an alternative of stowing away what she'd bought and then going out to see a movie followed by eating dinner at a good restaurant. Kirito, who would doubtlessly be searching for any escape from shopping, would agree easily and Argo would freely use this opportunity to make some progress down Kirito's route (or would it be more along the lines of forcing him to make progress on her route; considering Kirito's life was more like a dating sim than her own most days.)

Just as she had been preparing to open her mouth to offer Kirito an out to her shopping spree she had noticed that the mall was rapidly emptying and in that moment her flawless Kirito seduction plan fell to pieces.

A group of 5 stray devils appeared in front them of them and revealed their intention to abduct her like a bunch of idiotic shounen villains that showed up during the protagonist's introductory arc. They weren't even strong enough for her to convincingly get away with a damsel in distress flag so she could get Kirito concerned about her and make him say something Kirito-like In the form of a 'I was really worried about you' type comment to increase her relationship score.

Argo easily dodged a mediocre slash from a sword wielding stray devil before counter attacking easily, leaving a decent gash in her attacker's side.

Argo frowned for a moment 'maybe Kirito's right and I'm putting too much stock into anime logic…' she pondered internally.

'Nah' she decided after a moment snorting slightly at her own foolishness and going back to beating up the remaining nameless introductory arc antagonists.

* * *

Once the 5 stray devils had been defeated, Kirito used a basic restoration spell to repair the limited damage caused by the short skirmish while Argo put the bodies into dimensional storage. With all of the signs of the fight removed Kirito and Argo stowed their weapons and Kirito cast his usual perception obstruction barrier as they began walking back to their apartment.

About halfway to their apartment Kirito began frowning slightly, his frowning growing more prominent as they continued walking until Argo finally broke the silence, concerned, "what's wrong, Kirito?"

"I don't care" he said simply, as if his vague comment explained everything.

Argo looked at him "about what?"

"I killed 3 of those stray devils myself and while the fact they were going to abduct you means they weren't exactly good people I should still feel at least somewhat bad about it, shouldn't I? I mean I felt a hundred times worse after killing those guys from laughing coffin than I do now" Kirito commented after a moment.

Understanding replaced Argo's concern almost immediately "it's a side effect of becoming a devil" she admitted.

"Complete apathy?" Kirito spoke nervously.

"no, well not exactly anyway," Argo explained "I sometimes forget your still rather new to the whole devil thing with how strong you are." she commented before continuing her explanation "Devils have a life span of 10,000 years Kii-bou, if they got traumatized or felt guilty even half as easily as humans do, then most devils over 500 years old would be mopey, angst filled, emotional wrecks and hence devils naturally get less mental feedback from things like shame, guilt, and self-disgust. While devils can still acknowledge things as wrong and dislike the act itself, they won't feel that badly over something they've already done, to put it simply devils have a really easy time forgiving themselves for things."

Kirito paused taking that in "so if I wouldn't have wanted to do something when I was human, I won't want to do it now, but if I am forced to do it then I won't really feel that bad because of it?" he asked.

"Yep" Argo confirmed "take how you're acting now, you don't feel bad about killing those guys since it's in the past but you feel unnerved by your apparent apathy over killing them since it's happening in the present" she explained "since you're still rather new to being a devil the effect is probably a lot more prominent than normal, mostly due to your currently limited control over the stupidly large reserves of demonic energy you have. That said; you'd still feel bad if you were emotionally attached to whomever you hurt or otherwise wronged."

Kirito nodded after a moment "I can deal with that I guess" he paused momentarily "so about those stray devils going after you, you have any idea what that was about?"

Argo shrugged "probably just a bunch of idiots trying to use me to keep other devils at bay or otherwise ransom me for money or equipment; it's not that uncommon with stray devils and other criminals in the supernatural world."

Kirito shrugged and put the would-be kidnappers out of his mind as he and Argo continued their walk back to the apartment, both completely unaware that today's events were far from over and completely clueless of the panic happening not 5 miles away.

* * *

Kiba awoke with a groan, a vicious pulse of pain tearing through his body as he made an attempt to stand up.

"Don't move, you're still badly injured" a quiet, concerned voice that he instantly recognized as Koneko's pleaded from next to him.

'What the hell happened' Kiba wondered 'I was out helping Rias look into the fallen angel sighting recently and then…'

The boy started and then immediately attempted to stand up against only to be stopped by a combination of his own violently protesting body and Koneko's super strength "don't, your injuries are really bad, you nearly died!" Koneko cried out her usually deadpan voice holding a surprising degree of emotion.

Kiba protested immediately "but Buchou is in danger! We were attacked; if we don't help her soon they could kill her!"

Koneko looked down slightly "Akeno, Issei and all of the other devil's in fighting condition from Sona's peerage are searching the town as we speak, " Koneko paused "I was selected to stay behind and watch over you and the others in case you're targeted"

Kiba froze 'the others?' in a panic he looked around the room only to find he was not the only injured occupant of the room, which he recognized as their club room, and there were in fact several others in similarly bad conditions. 5 others that he instantly recognized as members of the student council president's peerage were scattered on various beds throughout the room.

"What the hell is happening?" he muttered, shell-shocked

Koneko looked down again before speaking "a group of 7 stray devils ambushed Sona and her peerage, they managed to defeat her queen and several others before kidnapping Sona after knocking her unconscious, we tried to follow after them only to come across you unconscious on the ground, the others continued after the strays while I took you back here" she explained, uncharacteristically talkative, as if she was trying to vent her own worry.

Kiba felt the strength leave his body slightly before he internal yelled at himself 'why am I so weak! I got defeated before I even knew what was happening and couldn't protect Buchou, just like I couldn't protect them' he felt his eyes stinging with tears 'I have to get stronger, not matter the cost'

* * *

Just as Argo and Kirito reached their apartment Argo frowned and looked off in a seemingly random direction. Kirito, noticing her strange motion, concentrated on his demonic energy and expanded his senses as best he could.

Although far inferior to Senjutsu, demonic energy did provide some limited degree of sensory ability. While Kirito had immense talent in terms of magic he still had yet to acquire the instinctive control most natural-born devils possessed over demonic energy. While Kirito could shape and use it efficiently when he concentrated on it, he wasn't to the point where he could perform anything more than rudimentary actions, such as reinforcing his body with demonic energy, with anything resembling casual, thoughtless ease. So while Kirito could sense magical activity from a distance he could only do so when he was focusing on it, as compared to Argo who did it subconsciously.

After a moment Kirito faintly felt a few surges of energy from a few miles away, in the direction Argo was looking. Argo glanced at him wordlessly prompting him to nod before both of them dashed off, blurring across the rooftops in the fading afternoon light.

Kirito frowned "looks like those stray earlier weren't alone" he mused as he kept pace with his master with ease.

"Looks like it" Argo spoke, back in her no-nonsense mode "and judging by how the others were underestimating us I'd guess they didn't peg us as that big of a threat, so we probably fought some of the weaker members."

Kirito nodded again before deadpanning internally 'is this my fault? I did spend the last few days attempting to jinx the lack of any apparent opponents after all'.

As if in response to his thoughts, Kirito's master called out, dropping her serious attitude slightly, "This is your fault, by the way, you're the only person with broken enough luck to actually manage to deliberately jinx something" she proclaimed, even as they raced across the rooftops, "seriously, can you stop being so Kirito for even a single day?"

He couldn't really argue considering he was thinking the same- "wait- what do mean by 'so Kirito'! My name isn't an adjective, and more than that, what the hell kind of weird-ass definition are you using to define it!"

"We're getting close, get ready for a fight" Argo replied as if Kirito hadn't spoken.

Kirito just sighed before refocusing and twirling his swords slightly in preparation for his second fight of the night.

* * *

 _ *** Reference to the horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, in which you literally had a sanity bar that had to be maintained by solving various puzzles to prevent you from going bat-shit crazy, which would result in a game over.**_

 **About the whole devil emotional thing, I'm not having Kirito magically go through life or death fights without ever offing anyone and yet I don't want to have to deal with him getting depressed nor simply ignore the fact that Kirito probably would realistically feel guilty. I felt this is a good method that's doable and reasonable and doesn't really effect Kirito's interaction with those close to him and doesn't turn him into a psycho.**

 **Kirito's current overall strength is currently at a solid S rank, the forth rank from the top below SS, SSS, and EX with A, B, C, D, and E rank below him. The distance between each class is greater the higher up the scale you go, with D and E rank barely being different while SSS rank and EX rank are as far apart as heaven and hell. Ophis, Trihexa, and Great Red are considered irregulars and not included in the scale. Argo is currently at the level of an upper A-rank which is above average for a high-class devil. On a side note, high SS rank is considered the bottom tier of the ultimate class spectrum.**

 **Argo's peerage (includes the known future members and their prospective evil pieces)**

 **King: Argo Marchosias (Argo)**

 **Queen: Kirito Kirigaya (Kirito)**

 **Bishop: Asada Shino (Sinon)**

 **Knight: Yuuki Konno (Yuuki)**

 **Knight: Asuna Yuuki (Asuna)**

 **Rook: Shinozaki Rika (Lisbeth)**

 **Rook: Ayano Keiko (Silica)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry this is coming so late and is fairly short but I've had a busy time the last month and a few weeks with finals and stuff, on the plus side I am now officially a high-school graduate and will be fairly free until I start my first year of college in a few months.**

 **About Leafa/Suguha; it will be a while before she is introduced and even longer before she is brought into the supernatural world. A key point in this is, for one, Argo has never really interacted with her (Suguha wasn't in SAO, hence no motivation to recruit her from Argo) and Kirito wouldn't really want to get her involved in something as dangerous as the supernatural world. Kirito fought alongside Argo, Asuna, and the others in Sao for 2 and half years and, as such, trusts in their abilities enough that he doesn't have reservations around fighting alongside them in dangerous situations. Suguha on the other hand is the cousin he previously neglected and whom hasn't been in a true life or death fight in her entire life as of yet, he's not going to be gun-ho about bringing her into a situation that could very well cost Suguha her life. I won't say any more about it but she will be introduced eventually so don't worry about it.**

 **As for the other characters you guys have been complaining about? Well you'll see, one of the reasons I left it as just Argo and Kirito at first is because I wanted to somewhat steadily introduce Main characters without just dumping them into the story during the first chapter. This is partially because I haven't exactly mastered juggling a large number of characters as of yet, I'm not exactly a professional writer after all, so I'm taking it slow.**

 **As for Silica as a rook, while I will admit that one of my primary motivations for that is because I find it hilarious when the Loli type characters possess more physical strength than everyone else (except for Kirito, that haxor) the other part is that while she was a melee combatant focusing on speed I already have 2 knights so I just decided to make her a rook rather than a bishop because it was still a close combat class rather than magic based one.**

 **On another note, I was vaguely considering changing up my Beaters rewrite up somewhat so that it aligns with the events of SAO Canon to Gamer's Guide to the Underworld, although admittedly without having any direct references to the supernatural and only extremely vague hints at best. I would have to change it up a bit but it could help me flesh out past events without derailing this story Naruto-style with compulsive flashbacking. That said if I were to do this I wouldn't put anything directly from the DxD universe into the story, it would still be pure SAO and anything that hinted towards supernatural factors would only be confirmed in this story via reminiscing or something. I'll set up a poll around this soon and i'd appreciate feedback.**

* * *

As I lay on the ground, dazed, I found my thoughts wandering to my childhood.

Ever since I was young I had always been lesser. I wasn't as smart as the other kids or as fast, strong or even as good at sports as the rest of them. I was the talentless fool who had grown up to be a worthless pervert. Then everything changed, or should have changed anyway. I was the bearer of a powerful device known as a sacred gear and I had immense potential, supposedly anyway. For all that I was supposedly the bearer of a legendary Longinus I was still slower than Kiba, weaker than Koneko, and don't even get me started on Kirito. I was worthless in a fight, I couldn't win this.

No.

I won't accept that, because I had a dream once, when I was younger; a dream, to be a hero, despite my weakness, despite my lack of talent. How can I be a hero if I can't even protect the people within my grasp, the ones standing right next to me?

I refuse to be weak any longer, I may not be a genius or a prodigy but I refuse to let that stop me.

I curled my hand into a fist and force myself to my knees as I felt something churn within me, power surging into me as the sacred gear on my right arm shifted and a voice rang out into the surrounding area.

 **BOOST**

As power flooded my veins I stood up, glaring at the 7 stray devils that stood, alarmed, staring back at me.

 **BOOST**

My body grew lighter and I took an uncertain step towards my opponents.

 **Boost**

Even though I was weak and talentless, they never scorned me for it.

 **Boost**

I may have only known them for a short while but they were my friends.

 **Boost**

Buchou

 **Boost**

Koneko

 **Boost**

Akeno

 **Boost**

Even that bastard Kiba

 **Boost**

I won't allow myself to fail, not again, not now.

 **Explosion!**

I won't lose!

Power filling up my entire body I charged forward with all the speed I could muster towards the stray devils in front of me

"I WON'T LOSE!"

* * *

As Kirito and I dashed across the rooftops a sudden surge of power nearly made me cry out.

"The hell is that?" Kirito murmured, clearly having sensed it himself.

"It's…" I trailed off, my eyes widening "what!?" I cried as I quickly identified the signature of the surge of demonic energy that had appeared out of nowhere "it's…The pervert?"

"Well…" Kirito began "he is supposed to have one hell of a sacred gear after all." He finished, shrugging "raw power probably won't be enough though, we're still a few minutes away at this rate; we should hurry" he said, speeding up.

As Kirito began to leave me in the dust I cried out "hey wait!" and rushed after him as quickly as I could.

* * *

"What the fuck was that?" a somewhat scraggly looking man complained as he gripped his bruised arm with a grimace.

"Fucking sacred gears" another man complained nursing his own wounds as he looked at the downed teenagers scattered across the park they were standing in.

After Issei's Sacred Gear had evolved, the Pawn of Gremory had proceeded to somehow down two of the seven stray devils -both of which were solid B-ranks at least- and injure several others before being surrounded by the remainder of the stray devils and eventually overwhelmed. Despite the boy's sudden power up the remaining 5 combat ready members of the group consisted of 3 mid-A ranks, and 2 low S-ranks, and although they had taken a fair amount of damage the group of stray devils were simply too strong and experience for Issei to defeat at this point.

"I won't lose…" or so the strays had thought. They watched with a measure of surprise as the heavily injured teenager forced himself to his feet despite his injuries and shaky consciousness.

"Tch, so he's one of those overly determined types," one of the S-rank strays complained "kill him" the devil ordered "he probably won't stay down from anything less."

One of the A-rank strays nodded and dashed forward drawing his sword for the killing blow swinging his arm downwards in an attack Issei couldn't hope to avoid in his current state. Fortunately, Issei didn't have to, considering a pitch black bolt of lightning sliced through the air a few feet over Issei's shoulder and impacted directly into the Stray's sternum sending him flying backwards even as two figures appeared landed slightly in front of the barely conscious pawn.

"Not bad" Kirito spoke directing his words to the barely conscious Issei "it takes some serious willpower to stand with injuries like those," he commended a tinge of respect in his voice "that said, lie down and rest, we'll handle this."

* * *

Even as the words left my mouth I couldn't help but acknowledge the recognizable shiver running down my spine. Issei was at best high D rank at this point without his sacred gear, not even half a match for the weakest of the stray devils and yet he had managed to disable 2 and deal a respectable amount of damage to the rest.

I grinned forcing my attention to the stray devils in front of me as I worked to control my excitement. If Issei could do that now, what would he be like later? Well, here's hoping he gets stronger fast, it'd be nice having someone at my level to spar against regularly, and rivals are great for progressing after all.

Even beaten and unconscious Issei still managed to shiver slightly, unaware that he'd managed to gain the attention of a genuine fight junky, and unfortunately for Issei, Kirito was only the first of many.

* * *

I noticed the well-hidden expression on Kirito's face in a heartbeat. While most people wouldn't have noticed at all I, as someone who has known him for 3 years and who is currently a maiden-in-love (screw Klein for saying I was anything else, I am not a stalker!) and knew Kirito like the back of my hand. Kirito's status as a fight junky was acting up and Issei was, unfortunately, (for him at least) going to have to deal with being Kirito's rival sooner or later. Surprisingly it might be sooner rather than later considering Issei's apparent power boost. I personally was glad, after all with a rival Kirito would probably have less time to 'train' with me, always a good thing.

So it was like this basically

Issei + power = him becoming Kirito's rival = - training time for Argo = + plotting time for Argo = + Argo relationship score with Kirito = Argo married to Kirito with 3 children

Pretty straight to the point, if I may say so myself.

Returning my attention to our opponents I made a side note to offer Kirito's expertise in training Issei to Rias later on.

Focusing on the 5 remaining stray devils I ready myself for a fight.

* * *

Taking a combat stance with both my swords held at the ready I quickly mapped out the battlefield in my head, taking note of both the injured devils (both stray and otherwise) as well as any possible cover or ambush points I could use to my advantage.

As I waited for Argo's command I was moderately surprised when it was the stray devils who spoke first murmuring amongst themselves looking shocked.

"Wait!" one of them called out "isn't that Marchosias heiress?"

"Yeah, Alec and the rest were supposed to have dealt with them by know what gives!" a second one called out nervously.

Alec?

Ah it's probably

"I don't suppose the group you talking about consisted of the 5 stray devils who accosted innocent little old me and my servant while we we're shopping would it?" Argo called out casually.

Innocent is a word that should never be associated with Argo unless preceded by synonym for 'Not' or ever so rarely followed by a 'this time', I felt so clearly in my heart as Argo continued mocking the stray devils.

"Because if so I'm afraid they won't be joining you anytime soon." Argo continued "considering we kind of killed them and all~"

Damn, I never thought I would be on same side as someone saying a line like that, well I did kill 3 of them myself so I guess I don't have room to complain.

"What!?" the strays cried out.

They synchronized, nice work guys.

"Bullshit, Alec was at least A-rank and the rest we're at least B-rank, there's no way you two killed all 5 of them."

* * *

Wait, A-rank, B-rank? Were those guys really that strong? They felt pretty weak to me, in fact they… they…. Oh shit…. It's that isn't it…?

I've been spending so much time with Kirito that I've started to become someone separate from common sense and realistic views of how strong people are! We haven't even finished the first arc yet and we're already having one of those episodes where the main characters meet a foe that trashed them in the past and they go at it full force only to discover that they've grown so much stronger that it isn't even a difficult fight! Those types of episodes aren't supposed to happen until the 2nd or 3rd season and we've barely even started the first yet!

Damn it Kirito, this is your fault! How can I become a proper information dealer in real life if your mere presence saps my common sense!

Showing no exterior sign of my earth shaking revelation I smirked at the 5 devils arrayed against my queen and I "maah, maah, B-rank? A-rank? Come on! You'll need to throw at least a couple S-ranks around to get past Kii-bou~ y'know?" I mocked as if this realization hadn't just struck me in the head moments earlier myself.

I had figured that Kirito was strong enough to beat Riser and all, but Riser was only high B maybe low A-rank without his immortality, and I had Kirito pegged at around High A-rank maybe borderline S-rank but if Kirito can toy around with me in combat, and I was managing to toy around with those guys pretty easily, then putting those two tidbits together means I'm probably mid or high A-rank and for Kirito to be able to beat me with ease suggests he should be at low or mid S-rank… after 5ish months as a devil…. Damn it Kirito.

I swear to Satan! What's next? Is he going to become a devil king candidate or something!?

…

Shit I totally just jinxed that didn't I? Meh whatever.

I found my internal monologue interrupted by one of the stray devils screaming "bullshit!" again.

Well might as well finish this now "Geez~ how repetitive, these guys, let blow them away already~ Kii-bou~ do you mind?"

My favorite fight junky in black simply glanced at me and grinned that blasted grin of his, making my heart flutter as he replied "Thought you'd never ask, master".

My heart continued throbbing as Kirito blurred towards our semi-stunned opponents and I couldn't help but let a few words slip through my lips "Well, looks like I won't need to delete my browsing history tonight~"

Shaking myself, I swiftly dashed into the fray alongside Kirito.

* * *

The moment I acknowledged Argo's semi-order I threw myself into the fray. I had gotten overly hyped up over the 5 stray devils that had attack us back at the mall and was hoping that this fight wouldn't be as much of a disappointment.

To my relief, the 2 stray devils that had only taken minor damage from Issei's little rampage were pretty tough actually, and compared with the 5 we'd fought earlier these 5 worked quite well in synchronization, actually managing to push me and Argo while we fought them.

Every time I was about to smash one of the weaker members, the others would instantly descend on me aggressively closing any openings and if tried to focus on one of the stronger two strays it would only result in the rest descending on Argo, forcing me to withdraw and help her, losing the offensive in the process. Fighting as we were the fight would be risky and time consuming, without an assured victory.

Of course that's only fighting as we were. Since the beginning of this fight Argo and I had been fighting with the best of our individual abilities.

"Hey~" Argo called out easily, her grin showing that she had come to the same conclusion I had "looks like we're going to have to take this seriously aren't we Kii-bou~"

I grinned even as confusion followed by anger flashed across one of the stronger stray devils visage "bullshit, don't try and bluff your way out of this, you're both going as fast as you can go and hitting as hard as you can" he declared "we're not so wet behind the ears to not be able to gauge an opponent"

He words marked a momentary respite that ended almost as soon as it began. As the 5 strays converge on our position, a single word, let loose with a savage grin as I met the blade of one of the foremost strays, sounded the final death toll of the small, semi-infamous group of stray devils that had collectively been known as the crimson talon.

"Switch"

* * *

It was ridiculous. These two couldn't be older than 17 and yet they both held a level of power that had taken me decades to attained, the black haired queen more so than the Marchosias heiress, the damnable boy actually possessing power that considerably surpasses my own, to the extent that I'm being forced to work in sync with the remaining 4 members of the crimson talon just to keep up. The galling thing was that everything pointed to this boy, this monster, having only been a devil for a fraction of a year! My blood boiled at this, how dare he! How dare he attain so easily what I bled and struggled and almost died for!

And now they have the audacity to suggest they aren't even going all out? I'll tear them to pieces! Emotions boiling I swung my blade down at that damnable boy with his damnable grin and let out a roar of anger.

The boy grinned savagely and suddenly I felt a chill run down my spine.

"Switch"

A single word pierced the battlefield and a heartbeat later I felt my body falter as I fell to the ground.

"W-what-t?"

* * *

Gurgling out a confused final word as I removed my claw from his torso, the stray devil (specifically the annoyingly repetitive one that kept saying bullshit) collapsed to grown and stopped moving.

Glancing around at the remaining 4 strays who'd fallen into shocked silence after the sudden execution of their comrade, I grinned "one down~"

* * *

Argo's words tore through the park like a Shinigami's scythe and for a scarce moment paralyzed our remaining opponents. Of course a moment was all we needed as we blurred forward in perfect lethal synchronization with what was arguably the foremost legacy of the world's most infamous death game.

It was developed against opponents that were always stronger than us, who were often faster than us, who could tank a hundred of our best blows and then kill us with a handful of their own. It was a fighting style that had been forged with the deaths of thousands and refined meticulously with the single-minded efforts of thousands more. The method that had once allowed us to topple titans and the one that when turned on our fellow man could have torn through all but the very best of the front-liners even in the hands of their weakest compatriots.

«Switching»

A simple name for what is arguably the most complex combat style ever created, for while the action itself may be simple, answering the questions of when and how you used it was, and still is, a source of almost unlimited combat potential.

For a group of people who had truly begun to master switching, the difference between fighting with or without it was akin to the difference between using both hands or restraining themselves to only one.

For Argo and I, who had fought at the front from the first day to the very ending of the last, who had battled day in and day out as the elite of the elite, it wouldn't be a mistake to say that for us, if weren't switching, we weren't trying.

* * *

"Switch"

What is that? Whatisthatwhatisthatwhatisthat!?

They were gone; there was no brutality powerful boy or lethally agile girl and what remained was a two headed four armed monster.

No. They're still there, I can see them standing half a dozen feet apart, so why does the boy strike with her claws and the girl block with his sword and attack with his claws and…

What is this?

"Switch"

What?

Why is it so dark?

* * *

It was no longer a fight. It was cleanup.

This fact asserted itself in her head the moment the last of the strays collapsed to the ground.

"mah~" she heard Kirito call out casually "we should find some more people to practice switching with, I'm feeling a little rusty after all these months."

'Heh that's terrible, he says we're rusty when we just butchered 5 stray devils in less than a minute.' What's worse still is that she agreed with him. 'Switching is just that overwhelming of a technique' she mused 'that even when rusty it could slant a previously even battlefield like nothing else.'

Of course it wasn't invincible; it obviously couldn't be done alone and at most it would allow them to reach a combined level of combat prowess to match someone a bit more than half a rank above what Kirito was capable of alone, but considering that's likely pushing the border of low SS-rank it's nothing to scoff at, especially considering she didn't have the physical abilities to completely keep up with Kirito at this point, dropping the efficiency of switching a bit. Of course in this case that boost in combat prowess against a single overwhelming foe took a side seat to switching's less prominent function as an army killer technique, weaving a lethal offense and ironclad defense against relatively weaker opponents in greater numbers to shave them down with concise ease.

Even if we were fighting 5 opponents, 3 with her skill level and 2 with Kirito's (sans switching), their absurd mastery of the art would likely turn the fight from one sided, to completely gridlocked, unless their opponents were to completely disregard their lives.

Switching was a technique like nothing else in the real world, something that wouldn't have and probably couldn't have been created anywhere other than Aincrad. It was Aincrad's unique combination of empowerment and restriction, its incentive to fight and it's time limit pushing people forward. In the real world regular humans would have either forgone attempting to beat a boss or perhaps simply gain immense numbers in order to pull it off, both either futile or impossible in Aincrad. A devil or other supernatural creature would have simply trained to become strong enough to beat it alone, something not feasible by the restrictions of the level systems within Aincrad.

Switching had been given life and been mastered by the players within this unique environment and some part of her knew that it would die alongside the same players who created it. It was ironic really, that for all it had once been her only method of escaping the death game that was ticking away the remaining time she had to escape her marriage with Riser, it had become a fond reminder of the very same times and the very idea of it ceasing to exist left her with a hollow feeling.

Shaking herself out of her daydream, she turned and jogged over towards the unconscious forms of Rias and Sona.

Just as she was about to reach them she was shocked into a combat stance by two massive surges of magical power nearby and 2 massive glyphs appeared in the middle of battle torn park between her and Kirito.

" _Ria-tan_!/So-tan! _Onii-san_ /Onee-chan is here to save you!"

"… ah, those two" she deadpanned relaxing and scratching the back of her head tiredly looking at the new arrivals.

"Those two," Kirito, who had somehow appeared next to her a literal split second after the teleport glyphs had appeared, asked her curiously "I'm guessing you know them then?"

"Yep" Argo deadpanned pulling Kirito slightly towards the right and from in between the new arrivals and the two incapacitated high-class devils behind them "oi, you two, they're over here!" she called out to the two figures that stood within the park "and you're late, we literally just finished up here" she complained.

Disregarding Argo's rather rude commentary the two new figures seemed to simply appear next the 2 unconscious heiresses at speeds beyond both Argo's and Kirito's ability to react to.

Kirito tensed and Argo sighed "Relax, they're on our side, or if they're not for some weird reason then we'll die before we can even react so no real point worrying."

Kirito raised an eyebrow at this "who are they, exactly?"

"Hm?" Argo glance at him "oh, the red haired dude is Sirzechs Lucifer, and the chick dressed like a magic girl is Serafall Leviathan, they're two of the four current Maou." She said carelessly.

Kirito paused for a moment and nodded "and there's no problem with you talking to them like they're pair of tardy office workers? And why exactly are they so concerned about those two?" Kirito asked gesturing towards the two downed heiresses and their caretakers.

Argo shrugged "in reverse order, Serafall is the older sister of So-tan and Sirzechs is the older brother of Ria-tan, since So-tan and Ria-tan were my childhood friends I've been exposed to them acting like this a lot and have lost most of my respectful views and attitude towards them, at least when not in public." She nodded solemnly.

Kirito just sweat dropped "okay then….. That's a thing".

* * *

 **Lol Argo math for the win**

 **So I gave Issei some of the spotlight this time for a very specific reason. I'm not going to give Kirito all of Issei's achievements nor am I going to nerf him compared to canon. While the story won't really focus on Issei and Rias's peerage all that much they will still do many of the things they did in Canon. Sure Kirito has saved Issei a few times at this point, but that's not going to be a recurring theme for much longer, as Issei himself is going to get stronger quite quickly, just like DxD Canon. This means, most prominently, that there is going to be a complete lack of harem stealing in this story (as in zero, without question).**

 **I actually quite like Issei as a character and personally feel some people have an overly harsh opinion of him sometimes. I mean seriously, if you disregard his perversity Issei is basically a Saint in regards to his sense of morals: he isn't greedy, lazy, glutinous, overly proud, and doesn't possess anything else that would be considered a negative personality trait other than his perversity and honestly that's a lot better than the vast majority of people can claim, myself include.**

 **Rant end, see you next time~**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey guys, back again.**

* * *

It was early in the morning on a Saturday a few days after the stray devil incident when the majority of the devil population of Kuoh found themselves filing into the Old school building and sitting down on one of the many chairs that had been temporarily moved into the building. The majority of the devils present had a visibly subdued atmosphere with 2 visible exceptions: a rather feminine young man with black hair and a somewhat short young woman with an irrepressible grin on her face and a mischievous glint in her eyes. The two of them were running through one of their standard conversation loops, with Argo suggesting something nonsensical and possibly -probably- illegal and Kirito unsuccessfully attempting to introduce Argo to sanity and conventional morals.

The identity of the two in question was that of the Marchosias heiress, Argo Marchosias, and her prodigal queen, Kirito Kirigaya. Watching the two of them bicker; it was almost hard to believe that not 3 days ago the duo had slaughtered a small army of stray devils with minimal assistance.

For the remaining devils, it was at the level of a kick to the face. It was an event that had left them completely helpless as they fought against opponents far beyond them, in fact the only person among them who had managed to do anything significant against the strays was, surprisingly, Issei Hyoudou and even then he had ended up having to be saved by Kirito shortly after. To them it had been a borderline traumatizing incident akin to a nightmare they just couldn't wake up from.

And yet here they were less than half a week later watching Argo and her Queen falling into their usual antics like nothing had happened in the first place. Worse than that, perhaps, was that remaining devils grudgingly acknowledged that it was a reasonable reaction on the duo's part.

Because while it was a nightmare for the members of Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri's respective peerages, it was a nothing but a normal, almost routine, fight for the remaining two devils at Kuoh, who both came out of it with nothing but a handful of quickly healing scratches to show for it. Conversely, it had taken the better part of 3 days for the others to recover from their injuries to a great enough extent to attend the impromptu debriefing Rias Gremory's brother had scheduled, citing the need to inform them who exactly they had been up against as well as why exactly reinforcements had been so slow to show up.

So here they were covered in bandages that hid half healed injuries and nursing their even more shattered pride. The only individual that was still too injured to attend was Issei Hyoudou, who was still recovering from pushing himself beyond his limits after the evolution of his sacred gear.

With no warning a magic glyph appeared in the center of the room and a group of 4 people materialized a moment later. All conversation cut off a second later as the young devils turned their attention towards the four people the majority of them recognized instantly.

* * *

Momentarily setting aside my conversation with Argo I took a minute to study the new arrivals, having a general idea of their identities based on what Argo had told me earlier.

The first was a tall man with shoulder length crimson hair and blue-green eyes. He was one of 3 devils referred to unanimously as one of the 3 super devils who possessed power far surpassing most of the previous demon kings, to the extent that some believed that they were close to being able to rival the original devil himself, Satan, who was said to be an equal match to the biblical god. The man in question was undoubtedly Sirzechs Lucifer, one of the 4 Maou and Rias Gremory's older brother.

Alongside the demon king stood a woman dressed as a maid who, despite what her clothes would imply, could kill me instantly, one doesn't become an ultimate class devil for their skill in doing laundry after all. Argo had given me her description with a slight undercurrent of fear in her voice, she was the strongest queen and the wife of Sirzechs Lucifer, Grayfia Lucifuge. She was also someone I had some respect for, anyone who could make Argo feel fear was someone who I wouldn't mind taking some pointers from.

Standing slightly away from the others a girl dressed in what could only be described as a magical girl costume stood with a bright grin on her face as she cheerfully went to greet her younger sister, Sona. Despite her apparent quirkiness I knew she was actually an extremely powerful devil and one of the four Maou, Serafall Leviathan.

The fourth figure possessed light blue eyes as well as green hair that was slicked back across his head. I was pretty sure he was another of the 4 Maou, Ajuka Beelzebub specifically, but Argo hadn't really talked much about him, likely as she was much less familiar with the man than she was with the older siblings of her two childhood friends.

'all in all, we have 4 extremely powerful devils with enough magic energy between them to annihilate half a continent in one go' I mused to myself 'this is actually pretty surreal.'

A few moments after I finished my initial observations Serafall Leviathan and Sirzechs Lucifer finished their rather… enthusiastic greetings with their respective younger sisters, both of whom looked like they wanted to die at the moment, and a serious atmosphere spontaneously descended on the room.

Sirzechs Lucifer sighed slightly and then spoke "now where to begin?" he murmured slowly shifting his line of sight across the room. The Maou seemed to pause for half a moment as he met my eyes, an emotion that might have been surprise crossing his face before vanishing.

"You could start by telling us what happened to the people that were supposed to be keeping an eye on Kuoh" Argo spoke casually "I mean it's one thing if they show up and then got their asses kicked, but that they never appeared at all is suspicious."

"There aren't any," Rias refuted "I refused them when they were offered"

Argo gave her an amused looked before repeating her question "what happened to them"

Rias looked annoyed "The-" she began before being cut of

"They were annihilated shortly before the strays attacked you all" Sirzechs replied, a somewhat awkward expression on his face "we don't know if it was done by the same strays that attacked you or someone else, unfortunately" he admitted.

Rias looked shocked, outrage crossing her face "I refused them when you offered them, I though you trusted me when I said I didn't need them!"

"Ria-tan, Ria-tan, Ria-tan" Argo murmured shaking her head slightly "you aren't the only person in this school you know, just because you thought you didn't need any extra security doesn't mean no one else in this school does".

The Gremory heiress opened her mouth as if to retort before seeming to lose steam, closing her mouth and nodding.

Deciding that there had been enough teenage angst for the moment I began to speak, directing another question towards the four Ultimate class devils in the room "they might have been attacked by someone else? Does that mean there is evidence that points towards someone else being present or merely that the time frame makes it difficult to say if the strays we fought could have feasibly removed them and then moved on to attack us?" I inquired, my tone considerably more respectful that Argo's had been.

Instead of Sirzechs I was answered by the green haired man who I believed to be Ajuka Beelzebub "a bit of both actually, there was some evidence that pointed towards the use of attacks methods we have no record of the strays that attacked you using, although that might just be out of date intel. On top of that the time between the guards assigned here going silent and the simultaneous attack on the 3 high class devils in the town was bit too short, although potentially still feasible, for strays at the level of the ones that attack you. On top of that, guards assigned were no slackers, quite a few of them were at the edge of A-rank combat prowess, so they shouldn't have gone down quickly" The man replied.

"Or quietly," I mused, half to myself "the 5 we fought at the mall were initially completely uninjured, and appeared fresh and well rested; while I can't say anything about the other 7, I can say quite confidently that the 5 we fought hadn't been involved in combat within the last few hours before we battled them" I continued, falling back into my old tendency to vocalize my thoughts when strategizing "When they first attacked us it was clear that they viewed us as easy pickings and did not expect us to put up much of a fight compared to the other 2 peerages present in Kuoh." I peripherally noticed that the majority of the room was now silent as I continued "Since we were viewed as a minimal threat they probably wouldn't have withheld the strays targeting us from fighting the guards in order to keep them fresh and would, in fact, likely have them do the heavier lifting during the process so the other 7 could attack the remaining 2 peerages, viewed as larger threats, at full strength."

I paused for a moment organizing my thoughts before continuing "we can assume that this wasn't a matter of incompetence because whoever was acting as their strategist came up with a plan that would have been successful in kidnapping 3 heiresses if not for 2 effectively unpredictable irregularities appearing: Issei's sudden power up as well as the fact that Marchosias-sama and I possessed a great deal more combat capacity than they predicted. My master and I trained in a private location beyond the range of conventional intelligence gathering so them not knowing about our advanced strength is understandable and Issei's power-up effectively came out of nowhere and isn't realistically possible to account for. This would mean that the strays should have had a competent strategist who would have at least had the ability to assigned tasks to properly allocate manpower" I continued, absently noting the silent room as I continued my train of thought.

"With even some evidence pointing towards another group removing the guards, it becomes highly likely they were eliminated by a third party and not the group of stray devils we fought" I concluded looking up before freezing as I noticed the entire room staring at me, including the 4 ultimate class devils, all of whom were staring at me with a strange expression I couldn't quite place. A moment passed and I knew one thing with absolute certainty.

That I really, really, had to curb my tendency to monologue while I'm in deep thought.

Another moment passed before the current Beelzebub nodded "okay then, taking into account new information" he said looking at me pointedly "it is extremely likely they were attacked by a third party which we will be looking into."

"heh" I laughed sheepishly scratching the back of my head.

* * *

I barely held back my laughter at Kirito's reaction to being stared at by 4 ultimate class devils after having nearly cut off one of them mid-explanation. Most people would pale or even piss themselves out of fear but Kirito, in true Kirito fashion, merely looked somewhat sheepish, actually managing to give off a short semi-apologetic laugh in response.

"Really?" one of Sona's pawns groaned looking towards Kirito "Not only are you a damn pretty boy and monstrously talented at combat you're also some kind of tactical genius?" he complained "Why is the world so unfair".

I gave up keeping a serious expression and started laughing "no, no, no Kirito's not a tactical genius" I refuting smirking mischievously.

"oh really tha-"the pawn began to reply, looking relieved before I went in for the kill, cutting him off.

"After all saying he's a tactical genius would imply that it was only battlefield tactics and combat related things" I grinned "Kirito's just a flat out genius, he even has a uselessly high IQ of like 180 or something" I continued innocently "he also a pretty damn good cook when it comes down to it, although not as good as Asuna."

The pawn quickly sunk back into depression slumping in his chair and grumbling to himself.

I grinned pointedly ignoring Kirito's deadpanned expression as I return to the task at hand "so other than the group that me and Kii-bou slaughtered" I began my grin growing slightly larger as I saw Kirito twitch at the corner of my vision "we have someone else pulling the strings that possesses enough influence or otherwise something of sufficient value to entice 12 stray devil's into attacking us despite the massive risk."

"That is correct" Ajuka Beelzebub responded "the 2 stray devils that were knocked out by Rias Gremory's pawn died before we could interrogate them, although their injuries weren't too bad they apparently had spell that functioned as a remote kill switch that we failed to detect."

"Don't worry too much about it though" Sirzechs Lucifer declared with a serious expression, which he then proceeded to completely ruin as he continued "I won't rest until I find the scum that assaulted my precious Ria-tan!"

Rias blushed again embarrassment once again turning her face red "Onii-sama, would you please stop it!" she complained.

The red Maou suddenly appeared to one side of Rias hugging her "Why~" he complained "why has my Ria-tan grown up and grown cold and distant from me~" he began crying slightly "it's not fair~"

Seeing an opportunity, I moved behind Rias my grin growing as I began to partake in some good old fashion skin ship.

"I know right~" I teased from behind Rias "her growth in the last few years has been explosive!" I moved my hands forward grabbing Rias' uselessly big breasts and started to knead them like dough before crowing out "especially here~ it's crazy!"

Unfortunately, our fun ended far too soon as I felt a pair of cold auras, blazing with not-quite killing intent sprout up behind right next to us.

In almost eerie synchronization a pair of overlapping voices called out " **Marchosias-sama** /Lucifer-sama, **what exactly do you think you are doing?"**

Heh, oops

* * *

In immediate response to a sudden threat, both Argo and the current Lucifer responded immediately to the impeding danger with a strategy both had long ago devised with all their strategic skill and had tested and improved in the face of countless life or death experiences to the point of perfection. In other words, both instantly folded like wet cardboard in the face of their respective queens' impending wraiths.

Argo and Sirzechs seemingly teleported away from Rias Gremory appearing alongside their respective queens with a smoothness and concise execution that told of extensive practice.

"n-nothing at all Grayfia-chan, w-why does it look like I was doing anything? Cause I totally wasn't" Sirzechs Lucifer smiled nervously as he shot out a paper thin excuse towards his wife's deadpanned glare.

"y-yeah!" Argo agreed directing her words towards Kirito "What he said, w-we weren't doing anything at all Kii-bou" Argo stammered internally flinching as she inadvertently used Kirito's nickname.

" **Really?"** both queens answered, still in sync.

"y-yup, totally nothing to see here, nothing at all" Sirzechs confirmed.

"y-yeah nothing, nada, there is a complete absence of events right now, I'm a p-profession informant, t-trust me I know." Argo confirmed desperately.

The tension continued for another moment before, as if by some invisible que, both of the queens cut their cold Auras and the tension vanished like a joke.

" _very well"_ the two queens spoke in sync before pausing, and seemed to notice the existence of the other for the first time.

Around the room the other devils who had been frozen by the dual pressures from the two queens finally began to process the event. Sirzechs Lucifer was the first to recover, having been forged in the fires of his wife's wrath for many a century, he managed to shake off the effects first and spoke a single sentence, one that contained such heart stopping terror that it brought fear into the hearts of many of the devils present.

"Satan below," he began, terror painting his face "there's two of them" he managed before he swiftly made his way to the nearest corner sitting down with his legs pulled up and began rock back and forth shuttering slightly.

* * *

It took roughly half an hour before the current Lucifer recovered from his panic attack enough that the meeting could continue.

"The group you faced was considered to a be a low SS rank threat overall, being comprised of 2 S-ranks, 6 A-ranks, and 4 B-ranks" Ajuka Beelzebub explained "the recording system we have set up within Kuoh was only disconnected from outside influence and we were able to obtain the recordings from the event from them as of yesterday" he continued "which brings us to our next topic," he paused momentarily turning his gaze to rest on Kirito and Argo "which is how, exactly, a freshly reincarnated devil and a single high class devil who spent nearly 3 years in a coma that ended less than 6 months ago managed to kill off 10 stray devils including 2 S-ranks and 6 A-ranks with what appeared to be minimal difficulty."

Argo grinned shrugging "well as for the how, in order of most relevant to least relevant: Kirito is a living cheat code, Plot Armor, the high synchronization combat system we helped create in SAO, our opponents being uselessly arrogant, high spec equipment, and the fact that this is the Arc of the story line were the main characters are being introduced in such a manner displaying their uniqueness so that they stand out from various the minor characters" Argo listed.

"Ignore the second and last reasons" Kirito deadpanned causing Argo to pout "and the first one is more accurately stated as me possessing a high level of combat oriented talent."

"high synchronization combat system?" Ajuka inquired after a moment raising his eyebrow.

"we called it switching, back in SAO" Argo explained "it's basically an extremely fluid combat formation slash style that allows people to properly fight alongside allies at in close combat without the normal drop in combat efficiency to allow people to fight more like a single more powerful combatant than a group of less powerful individuals. It's best against singular strong opponents or a larger number of weaker or similarly strong opponents. I think I should be around high A-rank with Kirito hover around mid S-rank, with switching the two of us could go toe to toe with a low SS rank opponent and stand a fair chance at winning."

Sirzechs, once again acting serious replied this time "normally wouldn't believe that, if I hadn't watch the two of you go from matching those strays to butchering the lot of them in scarcely a minute" He mused "I don't suppose it could be effectively taught?"

Argo nodded towards Kirito this time "you explain, you're better at combat based tactics than I am anyway."

Kirito nodded holding his hand and making a wishy washy motion "it could be taught, but I don't believe it would be effect at a large scale" he admitted.

Sirzechs raised his eyebrow "and why exactly is that?"

"because in order for switching to work properly those using it must trust each other unhesitatingly with their lives" Kirito deadpanned "you can't get that kind of trust with someone you've never fought alongside before. For it to work in an army you would have to somehow obtain that level of trust for any soldiers using switching together and keep those soldiers together to let it function. That would make an army extremely brittle and on top of that a single spy in a squad would be able to tear it apart at the seams quite easily since it leaves the users vulnerable to each other," Kirito admitted "for example I may be considerably stronger than my master but while I'm using switching with her I would be trusting her to cover my openings and if she attempted to kill me while we were switching she would almost definitely succeed."

Ajuka sighed "so it functions with a small elite group but wouldn't be realistic or effective to realize on a larger level then" he sighed.

Kirito nodded before adding "Also it would only function with melee based combat since it has no basis in magic or ranged combat beyond some limited function with throwing knives".

The current Beelzebub nodded before shifting towards another topic "the bounties of the various strays you all brought down will be transferred to you within the next few days" at these words the ultimate class devils stood up.

"oh and by the way" Sirzechs Lucifer smirked "due the nature of this incident it is being temporarily treated as a classified information so the details are currently being withheld from the generally public, it should be released in 2 or 3 weeks give or take, shortly after Argo's match with Riser" he informed them a slight twinkle in his eye as his grin turned slightly predatory "It's unfortunate that Riser won't be able to have a heads up about his opponents before his match but that's the way bureaucracy works I guess."

Kirito deadpanned as he watched Argo match the current Lucifer's grin two fold.

"oh, poor Riser-kun" she replied in the most insincere manner possible, a nightmare class grin stretching across her face "he might have actually stood a chance with some time to prepare".

Kirito just sighed at his masters antics.

"Stay strong" Grayfia encouraged Kirito after a moment "yours is still young enough that maybe, just maybe, you might be able to fix her before it's too late, I wasn't able to fix mine but you still shouldn't give up".

Kirito nodded a look of determination setting itself on his face "You're right, thanks sensei, I'll do my best"

Argo expression turned somewhat strained as she was reminded of the fact that Grayfia had, during the time when Sirzechs was recovering from his newfound trauma, apparently hit it off with Kirito due to their similar situations, taking it upon herself to give him helpful advice and hints on quote 'reining in idiotic masters' end quote. She really wasn't sure how to take the fact that her Queen had obtained a sort of apprenticeship to the strongest queen for, in her opinion, the wrong topic. The fact that the wife of Lucifer had casually indicated that both Argo and Sirzechs were broken to the extent that it was almost a hopeless cause to fix them wasn't helping.

As the 4 ultimate class devils said their goodbyes Sona was the only recipient of an overzealous sibling's affections, Sirzechs being held back the mere presence of Grayfia and Grayfia-lite (as he had internally dubbed Kirito). Neither Kirito nor Grayfia made a move to help Sona, both queens hearts' and minds' united in the opinion that they 'already had one' and that they 'were not going to deal with another'.

* * *

After the 4 ultimate class devils had teleported away most of the young devils at Kuoh filtered out until only the members of the occult research club (barring Issei) were present.

Rias Gremory sat silently letting out a small bitter laugh

"Buchou?" Kiba called out, concerned.

"Sorry" the red haired princess replied "it's just, I can't help but wonder what I've been doing all this time" she laughed bitterly again "if it had just been her finding that ridiculous prodigy of a queen I would be able to accept it but, Argo…." She trailed off "she used to be weaker than me, way weaker, and then she went into a coma for 2 and a half years which should have left her even further behind and yet… high A-rank?" Rias murmured "I've barely even reached low A-rank."

The Gremory princess held up her hand, starring at her palm for a moment before clenching it into a fist "I keep saying that I'll do anything to get out of marrying Riser and yet what have I really been doing? Recruiting whoever I can and somehow expecting a magical solution to pop up?" she demanded in an angry voice "Issei hasn't even been a devil for a month and yet he did more than I did in all this, he put his life on the line despite being apparently outmatched to try and save me, and if he can pull out even half the power my brother said he did back then he should be at least mid B-rank already" she paused swallowing "no more, I won't allow myself to remain weak any longer" a determined light flaring in her eyes as she stood up "we have month and a few weeks before my match with Riser, and I'm not going to waste a single day".

The 3 present members of her peerage nodded mirroring their master's determination. Recent events had been trying for the members of the Gremory peerage, it was something that could have broken them, but instead it merely fanned the flames and hastened the rise of what would become one of the most iconic peerages in the history of devil-kind.

* * *

 **And done.**

 **Sorry this took so long, especially after I said I would have free time, but literally the day after I posted that my dad was like "you should get a job for the summer" and I was like "sure" and now I'm working 30-40 hours a week at a fast food restaurant until college starts up which basically cancels out my apparent addition free time. Since this is actually my first job I spent a lot of the last month getting used to it more than anything else so beside a few slight additions to the in progress chapters of some of my other stories and this I haven't actually haven't done much in regards to writing recently XD.**

 **Next time on Gamer's guide to the underworld:** **Kirito learns the ins and outs of cooking chicken err phoenix *cough* I mean:** **First rating game! The battle against the immortal phoenix begins!**


	6. Chapter 6

I stood on one side of an oval shaped area, my face impassive as 8 figures materialized on the opposing side, all armed and ready for combat. Today was the day of the rating game against Riser and also the day I had learned about the specific rules for the rating game. Rules that Argo had forgotten to tell me until this morning. It wasn't really a bad thing, all considered, hell it was even outright advantageous in the current situation, considering what the rules were.

Simply put, this was a rating game style that depended heavily on the evil piece value of each peerage member. Argo, considered the 'home' team in this game, would select certain peerage members to fight and then Riser would select a number of pieces with similar value to fight them. Riser could only choose a greater value if it was impossible for him to select an equal value to match Argo's selection, and he could only choose up to 2 over the limit. On top of that if he did so all the selected pieces would not be able to fight in the next round. This would continue until the entirety of one peerage was unable to battle at which point the other peerage would be victorious. An important note is that the king cannot go out unless all of their pieces are unavailable.

These rules had been set years ago by Argo's parents, under the expectation that she would be able to gather a full peerage by this time seeing as the SAO incident wasn't something they really predicted, and was set up like this to allow Riser to react to Argo's selections with the best counter. In this case Argo's parents and Riser appear to have both rolled natural ones seeing as all the advantages of their once stacked field had been nulled and it actually became advantageous to Argo. Riser didn't know how to counter me because he scarcely knew anything about me and he could no longer take advantage of his greater numbers (not that that really would have help) and was forced to send his peerage members at me bit by bit.

Of course this was only from the perspective of Argo and I, from Riser and the other's viewpoint it must have still looked stacked, a rookie king and queen vs an immortal phoenix and a fully-fledged, decently experienced peerage. Thanks to how long I'd known her I could tell Argo was struggling to keep her face straight; it would be harder to troll them with something unexpected if she burst out laughing or let her normal evil grin show up before I'd even done anything after all. I swear Argo is such a sadist at times.

Speaking of Argo's normal personality, I had been ordered to do my best at traumatizing Riser, said order made somewhat easier by the fact that this whole thing was being televised for some reason. While normal I would refrain from acting in such a manner I had decided that it was better to make Riser not want to marry Argo either rather than risk annoying political crap later on as Argo's parents looked for a way around their promise, which Argo had guaranteed they would. I didn't have it in me to doubt her considering my short and rather unpleasant introduction to them before I was selected by Argo for the first round.

" _The Rating Game between Riser Phoenix and Argo Marchosias will now commence"_

The opponents I was currently facing were all 8 of Riser's pawns; an easy start for me but probably a death sentence for most other devils in my age group, considering it was legal to promote at all times during this rating game.

And sure enough…

"Promotion Queen!" eight voices called out almost simultaneously as Risers 8 pawns became 8 Queens.

Shifting easily into a combat stance a let a small grin grace my stoic expression. Risers pawns were all roughly at the level of experienced low class devils normally, even with the Queen promotion they were probably only as powerful as a slightly below average mid class devil. Nothing I couldn't handle all said, especially considering the fact that I could shrug off blows from any opponent weaker than a solid middle class devil.

Although some of Riser's peerage members had weapons and might be able to deal some damage it would be like going against a 10th floor boss monster with a starter sword as far as damage went.

Why do I suddenly feel like a raid boss now? Is it because I'm a devil now? Well whatever, I probably won't need my swords for this first fight and I would really want to accidentally kill someone if I go all out, martial arts it is then.

As the 8 pseudo queen approached me one of them mocking called out "any last words? Pretty boy."

My grin grew slightly and I responded after a moment "a few," I allowed a tinge of sadism (I blame Argo) to slip into my expression "one small step for man, one giant leap for gender equality" I finished speaking and then, not even stopping to see the pawns reaction to my reply, I moved.

While I wasn't going at my top speed per say I was still moving faster than anyone less than a rookie high class devil could track, let alone react to. I blurred towards the devil who had been taunted me a moment earlier and, without even hesitating, decked her in face, sending her flying across the arena.

"Boom. Headshot." I snarked dryly.

* * *

My face felt like it had been hit by a train, one second the black haired boy that was the Marchosias heiresses only peerage member had been talking and the next a black blur had rushed up to me and then I was flying across the arena in horrible pain. Barely clinging on to my consciousness I managed to look up to the location I once stood only to find the black hair boy standing there, casually lowering his arm.

A punch.

He had knocked me nearly halfway across the field and nearly KO'd me with a singular punch. What the hell kind of monstrous strength does this guy have? And I couldn't even track his movements earlier, I thought this guy had only become a devil half a year ago? What the hell is this monster?

* * *

The girl struggled to stand up after my attack, clearly barely conscious. I had, of course, held back the power of my attack considerably, I didn't want to kill anyone here after all. The amount I used seemed to be about right for this level of opponent so let's keep it around here I guess.

The other 7 pseudo queens snapped out of their shocked and one of them cried out "get him!" like a schoolboy level tactician who had yet to move past the tactical level of 'hit it till it dies' warfare.

The 7 pseudo queens rushed me and, a grin on my face, I moved to counter with brutal efficiency. two of the pseudo queens moved to attack me with what appeared to be magical chainsaws and in retaliation I dashed towards one of the pair slipping past her guard and sending her flying with a swift straight as I stole her chainsaw with my other hand, twirling around and flinging it towards the other one. While chainsaws aren't exactly the most aerodynamic weapons if you throw anything with enough force it becomes a lethal weapon and a chainsaw flying at around 400 miles an hour isn't exactly harmless.

The pseudo queen only just barely managed to bring her own chainsaw up to guard my attack, not that it helped all the much, both chainsaws were completely destroyed from the force of the impact and the girl was sent flying.

Without missing a beat, I threw myself back into the fray weaving through the pseudo queens' attacks and countering brutally. When one of Riser's pawns swung a Bo-staff at me, rather than dodge it, I simply punched straight through it before following up with a kick directly into the girl's stomach sending her flying. A pair of martial arts using cat eared girls moved to attack me but I simply slipped by one's attack, gripped the still extended limb, and promptly swung her right into the other girl as I released my hold sending both of them flying across the arena.

2 left. Without another thought I swiftly moved so one of the pseudo queens was between me and the other and then kicked her straight into the other one sending both of them flying into one of the arena walls.

I lowered my foot slowly, standing alone in the middle of the arena I let out a single easy breath. The entire exchange had occurred over the course of barely 15 seconds. The arena was completely silent, the somewhat sparse number of spectators left in an awestruck silence as the 8 pseudo queens struggled unsuccessfully to stand up.

A grin once again crossed my face. Yup, this is definitely what it feels like to be a high level raid boss.

* * *

"What's the matter Mother dearest," I spoke, my voice dripping with so much sugar it could give someone diabetes "you look rather pale" I finished just as sweetly. My mother, unsurprisingly, ignored me completely. Kirito had just finished beating the crap out of Riser's 8 pawns while they were under the effect of a Queen promotion, oh sure they hadn't technically been retired yet - Kirito was clearly holding back- but they were in no shape to fight, especially considering they were no match for Kirito even at 100%.

Now was one of those times when I loved possessing an endemic memory, because it means I would never forget the beautiful, to me, expression on my mother's now chalk white face. The blank slightly disdainful expression on my father's face was a pretty nice sight too, he only used that one when something had greatly aggravated him or when life wasn't going his way.

While I had never outright said it to him, I was pretty sure Kirito well aware of the fact that I had serious issues when it came to my relationship with my parents. Even before this whole engagement thing came up I never exactly had what you could call a happy childhood. My father, Damon Marchosias, was, as grating as it is to say, a worse version of myself.

My family's primary trade has always been in the trading of information for wealth and secrets which were then once more traded for more of the same. While I could be called greedy in my dealings, with few exceptions, my father was nothing less than a monster about it. If information was necessary to save lives or prevent some tragedy I would sell it cheaply enough that those who need it could buy it without being put under unrealistic strain; my father on the other hand would make sure people knew he had what they needed to save themselves and would then proceed to wring every last cent out of every last person, often leaving them ruined and in debt by the time he was done with them. If a piece of information would cause harm to innocent people, I wouldn't ever advertise it as something I possessed and even if someone came and asked for It I would price it at such an insanely high price that no one could realistically pay for it. My father would use it as a starting point to begin a small war, playing both sides against each other and slowly empting their pockets until one of the sides ran out, at which point he would give the side that could still wasn't yet broke everything they needed to wipe out their now penniless opponent, whether they were innocent or not.

My father had never sold a blade or gun in his entire life and yet, without a doubt, he was the world's most ruthless merchant of death.

I was just another tool in his arsenal, even as a child he had sent me to play with Rias and Sona for the sole purpose of gaining a route to influence 2 of the Maou, through their younger siblings, as well as to gain some access to the Sitri family's library. For a little girl looking forward to making her first friends he had told me, ordered me, to treat them just like he treated me, as a resource to be used and expended.

My father was probably the true reason I hadn't brought Asuna and the others into my peerage yet, because I would need all the ability I had after this to prevent my father from ruining everything for his own gain, forget about everyone, I would be hard pressed to protect Kirito alone from his influence at the moment. My only saving grace was that the information about what happened within SAO was rather limited for those on the outside, my father included, I had worked to make all my friends appear completely unassociated with me, save for Kirito who I kept close at hand. While I felt guilty about it, I had subtly influenced Kirito to keep contact with basically everyone, even his own family, to a minimum. This was, incidentally, probably the most difficult part of my plot, Kirito was incredibly intelligent and the only reason I actually accomplished this without him noticing was probably due to a combination of him directing most of his attention to the situation with Riser and because -wince- he trusted me.

Soul crushing guilt aside, Kirito was also unwittingly the only reason I was now confident I could oppose my father to some extent, the funds provided by Kirito's daughter Yue had allowed me to gather a certain degree of leverage against my father so that after this marriage thing had blown over I would be able to protect Asuna and the others and prevent my father from hurting them or using them against me.

While this unexpected boon gave me an actual chance, the truth was I had never intended to resurrect Kirito or any of my friend as devils. Doing so would have drawn my father's eye to them sooner or later and the very thought had sent shivers down my spine. I had intended to spend the last 6 months before my marriage with Riser with my friends, before disappearing from their lives forever, leaving behind my happiness and paying whatever price necessary to keep that man away from the people she cared about.

That was the plan, but it, of course, went wrong as so many others do in the face of Kirito. Once, back in Aincrad he had told me he would always be my ally, that he would stand by my side no matter who condemned me or how powerful an opponent I faced. In all honesty it looked like he had somehow browbeaten fate itself into helping him keep his promise. The one time his luck and ability weren't enough to win or at least survive in a life or death battle was the one time when he, if he had known everything, known of what would probably have come to pass if he had won, would have lost on purpose.

So I was left with a choice between letting the boy I loved die or saving him and potentially exposing him to the machinations of my father. In the end it wasn't a real choice and it took me mere seconds to realize this as I moved to resurrect him, my mind putting together yet another plan that was foiled in short order with casual ease. I had intended to resurrect him as a pawn and then get either Rias or Sona to trade with me for an unused piece in order to keep my father away from him. The resurrection failed, not enough power. So I tried 2 pawns…3…4…5… 6…. 7….8. all failed.

I had told Kirito and everyone else that he had required a value of 7 to resurrect in order to protect him, even if only to some small extent, but the truth was it had required the full value of a Queen piece to bring Kirito back to life. If I could have I would have said it was lower, but there are methods of roughly guessing what the value required was and 7 was the lowest I could realistically get away with. I had first tried to use two rooks but, against all odds, Kirito's compatibility with the rook piece was bad. I was reduced to laughing bitterly at that point. The odds of a person being incompatible with even a single type of evil piece was extremely low, it was a bug in the system that caused the rooks to only be worth 4 pieces each during the resurrection process but would otherwise have no long term effect on the person being resurrected.

And so I was forced to use the only piece I didn't stand a devil's chance in heaven at trading. The queen piece, the one piece that every last person in my generation already had used, the one piece that unerringly marked, either by chance or design, a reincarnated devil as being extremely close to their master.

So I brought him back, weaved a mostly true but still incomplete story and then he, in a manner so like him, turned everything upside down and onto its head and before I knew it I stood an actual chance at fending off my father from once again destroying my happiness.

My mother Altria was, in some ways, worse than my father. While my father treated me like a tool he, in the very least, made sure to treat me well enough to not dull my usefulness, my mother, on the other hand, seemed to believe I was the source of everything bad that had occurred in her marriage.

She had been born the only child of a wealthy family of extra demons and had caught my father's eye in short order. Not for her looks, ability, or personality, but as a someone possessing something he could use. The Marchosias family had, at the time, hit a low period in its existence with debts built up from the careless spending of my late grandfather in his ill-fated attempts to reintegrate the ideals of the old Maou faction into devil society and my father needed money to begin to rebuild the family fortune.

So with sweet words and actions that were in reality no more genuine that a mirage in the desert, he slowly and meticulously cut his way into my mother's heart. He kept this façade up until shortly after I was born, before dropping it, having succeeded in taking the last thing of great value he needed from her, an heiress, a most useful tool to replace one that had lost its value. My mother, rather than accepting the fact that my father had never loved her instead decided that it was my fault that he no longer care about her, for being born a girl instead of a boy.

I don't know if my father had planned it, although it wouldn't surprise me if he had, but my mother proved more of use to him now, in her pathetic attempts to earn his favor, than she ever had while he kept up his act. While before she had -apparently- been a somewhat moral individual, she now knew no limit for her actions, anything of value she could attain for my father would be attained, no matter how ruthless or cold-blooded the method was. She did this all while cursing my name and beating me and treating a child less than 10 years old as the root of the world's problems.

Growing up in an environment like this it's not really all that surprising that the first time I learned what it meant to be part of a family was barely 2 years ago sometime after our guild was established back in SAO when I had finally managed to almost completely shake off my father's influence. When I understood for the first time what it was like to have people genuinely care about you for who you were, not who you pretended to be.

Although I loathe myself for saying it, I wasn't nearly as genuine of a friend to Rias and Sona as I pretended to be, my father's lessons too deeply drilled into my psyche to avoid thinking about personal gain.

While I resisted somewhat, against the marriage for one, it still took me nearly 2 years away from my father's influence, 5 unbelievably kindhearted girls becoming my closest friends, and one idiotic genius of boy with black hair and onyx eyes promising to help me in any way he could, not for money or because he owed me a favor, but because I was someone he genuinely cared about; it took all of this for me to finally break free from what my father had done to me.

All of this, and it's finally about to reach a conclusion. A small smile brightened my face for a moment as I looked away from my parents and towards Kirito as he stood unopposed in the middle of the arena a feeling of nostalgia swelling within me. It wasn't much different from our time in SAO really, Kirito standing unmatched in the light upon his chosen battlegrounds, all while I stood in the shadows of my own battlefield, as unmatched in the dark as he was in light.

After all, I'm wasn't Aincrad's best information dealer and spymaster for nothing.

Schooling my expression, I glanced at my father out of the corner of my eye, berating myself for letting my façade drop in his presence for even a moment. His eyes were focused on the arena field heedless of anything else except what was obstructing his goal. A shiver went down my spine as I remember once more that the thing standing between my father and what he wanted was Kirito. I had known it would end up like this for a long time now but, seeing the man that always destroyed everything good in my childhood staring coldly at the one that had brought me back from the brink of despair was still a chilling sight.

But that was all it would ever amount to. All I would ever let it amount to. I was through with that man destroying what I cared about. I was through being that bastard's tool. No matter how far I had to go or what method I had to use, that man would not lay a single filthy finger on Kirito or the others for as long as I drew breath.

Resolution filled the Marchosias heiress as she averted her eyes from her father focusing on the fight once more, noting idly that Kirito was already in the process of fighting both of Risers knights and one of his rooks, apparently having finished with the pawns while she was distracted. If Argo had observed her father for even a few more seconds she might have noticed his gaze shifting to watch her as something shifting in his eyes, as if he had just confirmed something he had already suspected before returning his gaze to the fight in front of him.

* * *

Seeing as Argo made no move withdraw me from the field after the Riser's pawns had been retired it was taken as me once again going in for the next round and Riser, with a distinctly constipated look on his face, had selected both of his knights and one rook. They had instantly taking combat stances and were clearly taking this very seriously, not that it really changed much in the end.

I was faster than the knights, stronger than the rook, and I had more endurance than all of them combined. Frankly there was only one way this would end and I think everyone, Riser included, was aware of that. They were most likely told to start trying to wear me down most likely hoping I wasn't as durable as I was fast and strong. A misguided hope fortunately, well fortunately for me at least.

I Decided to hurry up mow down the rest of Risers peerage members so I could actually fight him, I was interested in fighting someone who was apparently immortal, especially considering I would be able to enjoy the novelty without getting smacked around.

Two of my three opponents were equipped with swords and I decided to take that as a challenge to take things a little bit more seriously.

With a grin I moved my arm upwards and to the side with deliberate slowness, causing all my opponents to tense. With a quick surge of demonic power, a glyph appeared near my outstretched hand a hilt visible in the center, moving my hand and gripping it loosely I drew one of my blades, specifically the one designed based on my Elucidator, from dimensional storage pointing it lazily towards my opponents.

One of the knights apparently took my lackadaisical attitude personally and proceeded to recklessly charge me, swinging her sword – a claymore as it happens- down in a textbook slash. In all honesty she had pretty good form and her footwork was fairly solid as well. Of course pretty good and fairly solid don't mean jack against me. Flooding my sword with demonic energy my blade flashed twice consecutively leaving a momentary trail of black light as I slipped past her, stopping about a dozen feet behind her.

The sound of metal raining onto the ground carried across the area. The knight fell to her knees, her arms shaking as she held what was left of her claymore, which is to say about 7 centimeters of its once meter long blade. After a moment the hilt felt through her hands, the recoil from my attack on her weapon leaving her hands far too numb to maintain a proper grip.

Snakebite was a sword skill specializing in the destruction of weapons using 2 nearly simultaneous attacks from opposing directions to put immense strain upon a weapon. It was also one of the most difficult to recreate due to the fact that the 2 strikes had to be within literal milliseconds of each other from a frankly awkward angle.

It was around this point that my other two opponents engaged me with Riser's Rook charging me head on as the knight blitzed forward from my left wielding a longsword dagger combo. Angling myself slightly I easily caught the Rooks swift punch with one hand swing my blade out to bat aside the knight's longsword. The knight then attempted to take advantage of my apparent opening with her dagger stabbing it towards my face aggressively. While normally I would have just kicked her in the stomach, I was feeling a bit showy so on a whim I decided to do something a bit flashier. Yup a whim, it had nothing to do with the fact that someone was actually trying to use dual wielding against me off all people, no sir. Seeing as the blade I was wielding was modeled after my Elucidator it possessed the same atypical sword guard as the one I wielded in SAO and while the gap in the guard was too small for a longsword to slip through, a thinner blade like a rapier or a dagger could slip right through. Bringing the sword's hilt up slightly I easily caught the dagger within the guard and the blade slipped through it before stopping about an inch away from my face as the base of the dagger proved too wide to slip through.

I didn't take a second to enjoy the hilarious expression clearly visible on the face of the girl who had tried to use dual wielding against me. Nope not at all, I was merely planning my next move. Twisting my blade, I forced the dagger to face hilt down dragging the girl with it as she reflexively tightened her grip on her weapon, I then swiftly freed my sword and slipped behind the knight releasing my hold on the rook's fist as I spun around leaving the two girls face to face.

I then proceeded to kick the knight's ass. Well not literally, it wasn't anywhere near the center of a person's mass and the kicking angle is frankly no good considering the height difference. Anyway I kicked the knight straight into the rook which sent them both flying…. Directly into the other knight who was still kneeling in shock. Oops.

" _Riser phoenix 2 knights and 1 rook retired"_

I actually feel a bit guilty about that last one, seems a bit unnecessarily brutal to be honest. Ah well, gender equality and all that. A few moments passed until…

" _Argo Marchosias has chosen to maintain current selection, Queen Kirito will continue to next round"_

I almost fell to my knees for the second time today. Damn it, I'm taking more damage from the announcer than Riser's peerage, can you just use my name please? Stop calling me a queen, it's painful.

' _Riser Phoenix has selected his Queen to do battle during this round'_

The second she materialized she instantly took flight hovering at least a hundred feet above the area floor.

Huh, that's actually pretty smart to be honest. It is a bit harder for me to move at high speed while flying due to the absence of things to kick off of and from what I'm told most devils can't even do that much. I made no move to join Riser's queen in the sky yet, simply regarding my opponent easily.

"what's the matter?" she taunted "afraid of heights? That's too bad then because it doesn't matter how good you are at hitting things with your pointy sticks if you can't even reach me." She continued reaching an incorrect conclusion so quickly that I doubted she even knew the definition of the word deception.

"You aren't fooling anyone with the cheap trick you used to make your blade glow or that shoddy dimensional storage spell." She declared "A savage like you who is only good for hitting things probably can't use anything beyond basic spells, and seeing as you've only actively used demonic energy a handful of times, I imagine your magical reserves are equally pathetic" she gloated, clearly in love with the sound of her own voice "so go ahead and keep swinging that stick around, I'll show you how a real devil fights."

Having apparently finished her monologue, I felt my opponent's demonic energy surge, small wisps of dark energy twisting around her as it was drawn to the surface. 7 offensive moderately large attack spell glyphs appeared around her as she grinned pompously "let me show you why they call me the Bomb Queen, you ingrate!"

7 attack spells of varying shapes shot out almost simultaneously at roughly the speed of a bullet shot out of an anti-material rifle. Shaking my head slightly I poured demonic energy into my blade as I swung it, colliding directly with the first spell, cleaving through it easily before almost instantly swinging my blade at the next spell and destroying it just as easily. 5 more slashes over the course of about a tenth of a second and the last of the attack spells was shattered uselessly.

Riser's Queen's poleaxed expression prompted me to snark at her rather caustically "ah so that's why, they call you the bomb queen because every time you have a chance to look cool you end up completely bombing it, that makes perfect sense".

"y-you…" her shock was replaced by anger "what the hell did you just do!"

I grinned "I simply made like the savage I am and kept swinging my stick around" I deadpanned "but enough holding back," my grin grew "let me show you how a real spell caster fights"

"what are you…" my opponent abruptly cut herself off as I began bringing a respectable portion of my demonic energy to bear.

Unlike my opponent's small wisps my own demonic energy engulfed me in a shadowy cloak of raw power. While I typically rely on my physical attributes I still possessed an extremely large quantity of demonic energy that probably overshadowed most high class devils. Even the fraction of my demonic energy that I brought to the surface was probably more than Riser's Queen held in her entire body. 5 months of nonstop use during my training with Argo had increased my already generous reserves considerably, to extent that I actually held several times more demonic energy than Argo possessed, and she actually possessed reserves slightly above that of the average high class devil.

While I currently lacked the control to gather it quickly enough to be useful in higher level fights, against an opponent like Riser's Queen, the few second charge up time was merely a slight opening instead of a fatal one. A slight opening that quickly passed as dozens and dozens of magic glyphs appeared around me, glowing with power.

I grinned somewhat savagely "pay attention," the glyphs pulsed ominously "you might learn something" I deadpanned before several dozen lightning spells shot directly at Riser's queen.

Long story short... well

' _Riser Phoenix's Queen retired'_

As Riser's somewhat char grilled Queen disappeared in a flash of light I got the distinct impression that I might have gone a liiittle bit too far on that one.

' _Riser Phoenix has select 2 bishops and 1 rook to do battle in this round'_

I twirled my sword slightly and prepared to face my new opponents when suddenly,

' _Riser Phoenix's 2 bishops and 1 rook retired'_

Wait what? I didn't even do anything this time.

' _As the last member of his peerage King Riser Phoenix will do battle in this round'_

Oh, he withdrew them I guess.

As my final opponent appeared across from me I lazily drew my other sword from dimensional storage as a growing grin appeared across my face.

My grin was not well received unfortunately, Riser's already unsightly expression shifting into something that could only be called a strange combination of unholy rage, arrogance, pompousness, and entitlement. Like he somehow expected me to suddenly become a shivering weakling at his mere presence.

' _round start'_

"Don't think your hot shit just because you managed to beat my peerage bit by bit, I can defeat all of them at the same time just as easily, to be honest" he declared "I am immortal, and to someone like you I am an unsurpassable wall that you will never pass, no matter how much effort you put into it or how many petty tricks you pile up it wont make a difference. You have no method of defeating me"

No method? I can think of at least dozen that are only impossible because it's against the rules of the rating game. Seriously all anyone really has to do is beat up the first chicken shit stray exorcist they meet, steal his light gun, and shoot you in the balls with it.

Speaking of balls,

"I apologize in advance" I said, bowing to my opponent lightly "I wouldn't typically do this but it was an explicit order from my Master"

Riser looked genuinely confused "an order? What the hell are you…" I stopped paying attention to him as I blurred forward and appeared directly in front of Riser in a fraction of a second and, with a tinge of guilt, proceeded to kick Riser in the balls with enough force to level a four story building.

* * *

First Rating game part 1 of 2 end

* * *

 **Best cliffhanger is the best.**

 **Sorry for the slow update but I had written up about 1000 words of this and then got stuck, to the extent that I ended up scrapping it and starting over, at which point I actually managed to write this entire chapter up in a single day.**

 **For those of you who didn't get the gender equality joke Kirito kept using, it was essentially a jab at the fact that almost all anime series tend to avoid having any of the male protagonists punch female antagonists (although using giant death lasers on them is generally fair game, apparently)**

 **So we have the introduction of Argo's shitty parents as well as phase one of Riser's worst day ever.**

 **If I didn't make it clear enough in this chapter, then let me just be straight with you: Argo's dad is one Evil son of a bitch. He does not care who is harmed if he profits from it and will use his own family members like chess pieces without hesitation. He is also annoyingly charismatic when he wants to be, talking his way into people's people good books before stabbing them in the back when it's convenient. Yet for all the people he has harmed he, often by virtue of technicalities, has not once broken a law or done something Illegal. If he signs a contract he will follow it to the letter, never outright breaking it, instead twisting the wording in a way that doesn't technically go against his word and yet perverts the intended meaning behind it. He is a man that makes Laughing Coffin look like a joke without even drawing a weapon and has caused more bloodshed and death than most dictators.**

 **While I don't particularly like making OCs that I don't kill off nearly instantly or are otherwise only present for one event before never being part of the story again, I wanted to give Argo an opponent for her own specialties with a solid backstory between the two. When I considered the fact that I would have to make OCs for her parents or otherwise dance around ever meeting them, Damon Marchosias' character just sort of fell into place. There is no hidden crimes or illegal activities that can be revealed to give Kirito and the others enough evidence to get him convicted or declared a criminal, he is an opponent that can only be dealt with by someone who works in the same trade as him or otherwise doesn't care about the implications of murdering a high class devil with no way to legally justify it.**

 **As for Argo's mother, she is basically an obsessive shell of woman in perpetual denial. While it's mentioned that Damon kept up his façade until after Argo was born, it's important to note that devils reproduce very slowly, to the extent that it's not uncommon for it to take well over a century before a child is born from a couple, which is the reason the evil piece system was so necessary. This means Damon likely spent well over 100 years pretending to love Argo's mother before suddenly revealing that he never meant it for a moment. That type of thing would completely shatter almost anyone's psyche especially considering Damon likely ensured her loyalty through other methods than something as 'fickle' as love, slowly making her nearly completely dependent on him, so that when Altria's happily ever after came crashing down, it dragged her down with it.**

 **As I mentioned earlier Damon is antagonist that only Argo can properly deal with, standing upon a battlefield that Kirito and the rest of the members of Argo's peerage can't reach. That said, Damon won't always be acting against them. Argo's father only cares about what will benefit him the most, if that means working with and assisting his daughter then he will do so, if it means leaving her to her death he will do it just as easily.**

 **HIGHSCHOOL DXD LIGHT NOVEL CANON SPOILERS BELOW**

 **I'm warning you**

 **Spoilers**

 **Don't do it!**

 **Spoilers**

 **Or do, if you really want**

 **Spoilers**

 **In some ways Damon is the embodiment of what I believe Rizevim Lucifer wished to be. While Rizevim kept up a façade of being a complete monster he had to work to keep up his image of his desired self until it came crashing down on him shortly before his death in the later novels, for Damon on the other hand, it is merely his true nature. While Rizevim strived to do something to 'prove' his status as a 'true devil' despite the risk, Damon only does what benefits him with the least amount of risk possible. If the opportunity existed and he believe the risk was within an acceptable margin, then he would enslave the entire underworld even if it meant killing thousands. Damon doesn't go out of his way for anything that doesn't affect him, if it's to his benefit to act in a way that causes the deaths of thousands he does, if it's would serve him better if he acted in a way that saves thousands, he will. He is a man who simply doesn't care if the rest of the world burns to nothing, just so long as he is a safe distance away when the fires start.**

 **Long story short, Damon Marchosias is a genuine** **monster** **.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hey guys! Back again.**

 **I don't think I was completely clear about Damon Marchosias last time, both in regards to his skillset and position in devil society. In actual combat Damon is actually relatively weak; sure he can hold his own, but he would lose against someone around Kokabiel's level hands down, no, what makes Damon so dangerous isn't something so tangible as combat strength.**

 **While Argo was an informant that gathered information and data to assist people (while making a healthy bit of Col on the side) Damon is the dark side of that. He deals in secrets, debts, and favors; excelling in turning his enemies into pawns who can't so much as make a move against him without socially self-destructing and ruining themselves.**

 **In regards to Sirzechs and the Maou's 'letting' him remain around; the truth is they would much prefer to remove Damon from any form of power if they could, he's just such a slippery bastard that they can't get anything on him. It's important to remember that the Maou don't have absolute power in the underworld. In DxD Canon there are many references to higher ups in a manner suggesting they are forcing Sirzech's and the other Maou's hand. The way I see it, the Maou are the equivalent of the executive branch of the U.S. government, powerful yes, but not in a manner that lets them do whatever they desire.**

 **Seeing as many of the aforementioned higher ups are essentially under Damon's thumb seeing as he is 'helping' them keep some -let's say- unsavory, information out of public view, the Maou have no method of removing him that wouldn't result in horrible backlash. Additionally, Damon is somewhat useful in a way, he may be heartless but he is still incredibly intelligent and helps hold back much of the older generation of devils from doing anything stupid out of misguided pride. Even if Damon only restrains the older generation out of personal interest, his actions have still helped prevent another great war and removing him would be a textbook example of a solution worse than the problem it solves.**

 **Argo is the only one capable of facing him in this regard because she learned many of her skills in obtaining and controlling information from her father as he sculpted her into the most efficient tool he could.**

 **No matter how strong Kirito and the others become they aren't going to be above the law any time soon.**

" **Yeah, even for Kii-bou that doesn't happen until NG+"**

" **Damn it Argo"**

* * *

No matter how strong or fast a devil becomes, they still weight around the same as a human. While devils and other supernatural creatures can use their magic power to anchor themselves more effectively than mere friction in order to block attacks that would normally blow them away as the ground beneath them crumbled, this technique is still an active, if borderline subconscious, action.

This, of course, would explain why Riser Phoenix, having been caught unaware by an attack that embodied the truest meaning of the phrase 'under the belt', went flying into the air, flailing like a rag doll and squawking like a recently (and sloppily) neutered goose.

Cheerful imagery aside, Kirito slowly lowered his leg as he watched Riser slam into the wall on the other side of the arena -failing to cause any damage to the reinforced barrier even with his impressive momentum- before he fell in a heap at the base of the wall.

For the second time in less than 10 minutes the entire arena was completely quiet before a familiar laugh pierced the stunned atmosphere.

Kirito sighed grinning wryly "Damn it Argo" he murmured fondly under his breath as he listened to the cheerful (and somewhat sadistic) laughter of his Master echoing through the arena.

* * *

Argo didn't even try to hold back her mirth. While she would normally maintain an almost completely professional mannerism in front of her father, this was only to prevent him from grasping any of her weaknesses. She was fairly certain that the fact that she found great amusement in Riser getting kicked in the balls with the force of a freight train wasn't something anyone, even someone like her father, could really use against her.

While she had indeed ordered Kirito to kick Riser in the balls for her, she honestly hadn't expected him to actually go through with it. Knowing him, he had probably decided to do it after he noticed how tense she was acting near her parents in the literal minute before she had managed to send him off into the first round and as far away from her father as was currently possible.

Well, it wasn't like she could really make any meaningful moves in the closing scene of the tournament arc until the climax was finished, so she might as well enjoy her soon to be former fiancé get smacked around like a joke.

With this in mind, Argo allowed her plans for dealing with her father's machinations to move to the edge of her mind, not quite absent, but no longer almost all consuming.

So it was that Argo Marchosias sat back, relaxed, and continued to laugh like a serial killer.

* * *

As his Master's laughter eventually quieted, a single thought flitted through Kirito's head 'that laughter probably would have sounded a lot more intimidating if I hadn't caught her practicing it in the mirror at least 6 times in various anime villain poses.'

Argo's dark (and ongoing) history aside, Riser Phoenix had finally managed to bring himself to stand.

While the Phoenix clan's immortality meant any damage was long healed, the mental aspect of Kirito's attack was still present, if dulled by Riser's visible seething rage, and Kirito was certain he could see a hint of a limp as Riser marched across the field towards Kirito glaring at him with literal burning rage.

Deciding that it was best to strike the iron while it was hot Kirito blurred forward, holding back his full speed until he had almost reached Riser before tightening his grip on his blade as he went for Riser's throat at full speed.

"Die you bastar-" Riser began before he was cut off by his head separating from his torso.

Kirito stopped about 2 dozen feet behind Riser spinning on his heels and allowing the phoenix just enough time to regenerate before attacking again.

* * *

'This Bastard!'

The world went black for a moment.

'This filthy reincarnated trash'

Darkness

'I am an immortal phoenix'

Black

'so why?'

Again the world faded to black

'why can't I hit this bastard!'

Black

"That's it!" I roared furiously as my regeneration nullified yet another would-be fatal blow, drawing on a larger portion of my demonic energy and allowing my flames to surge up around me in a storm of heat and death that forced that dark haired bastard to fall back a few dozen yards. Taking advantage of the momentary cease in my opponents attack I took flight, my massive flaming wings raging behind me as I glared down at my opponent who flinched slightly in fear.

While my queen had been defeated handily, the method this bastard used revealed a few weaknesses of his. While his reserves are fairly large for a reincarnated devil he clearly can't use it efficiently yet, and his apparent avoidance of flight hints that he either can't fight effectively in the air or can't fly at all, otherwise he wouldn't have revealed his magic so carelessly. Knowing my foolish fiancé, she wouldn't waste any advantage or useable element in a battle against a superior opponent.

Since I could easily take advantage of my opponent charging up one of his spells to hit him with one of my own and he shouldn't have much demonic energy left it was only a matter of letting him waste the remainder of his demonic energy before trashing him from the skies.

It didn't matter how hard he could hit or how fast he could run, this black haired bastard lost the minute he decided to fight against an invincible phoenix.

* * *

'Wow flaming wings, that has got to be the gaudiest thing I've seen since I went shopping with Argo' I thought, flinching in fear slightly at the memory of the dozens of pink bags that I wasn't allowed to stow into dimensional storage for some nonsensical reason.

'Where was I? ah right, battling giant flaming whack-a-mole' I remembered, lazily dodging as Riser shot a few fire spells at me while grinning arrogantly.

The bird brain in question laughed like a jackass "While you might have distracted everyone else by burning through most of your demonic energy against my queen in order to dodge the fact that you can't fly properly, I'm afraid such a plebian trick won't work against me" he declared.

'Really?' I deadpanned internally 'What is with people and declaring baseless assumptions about opponent's weaknesses based on half assed reasoning?' I wondered, stunned at Riser's sheer stupidity. I crushed a grin as it attempted to situate itself on my face, forcing myself to remain stoic as I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I dashed towards one of the wall on the side on the far side of the stadium baiting Riser to follow me from above.

"Where are you running to? You low class trash." Riser laughed gleefully

'Hate to break it to you buddy but,' I internally monologue 'it's a trap!'

Rather than stopping as I approached the wall I leaped and began to run straight up it. While the upper part of the area was a magical field that would repel participant's inward the lower portion was a normal -or as normal as a nigh indestructible wall can get anyway- piece of architecture. Just as I was reaching the end of the walled portion I used an aspect of a specific sword skill to launch myself up into the air, unfurling my wings and using them to further my acceleration as I did so, surpassing Riser's altitude in a heartbeat.

Sonic leap was a skill to cover a vast distance quickly and with the restrictions of SAO removed it could be used to launch oneself upward at extreme speeds.

Using the barrier surrounding the top half of the area, I kicked off, inverting myself in the air and using my wings to aid gravity in accelerating my downward motion. Riser had, at this point, only just begun to react to my unexpected action and had only just begun to look up as I reached him. Our eyes locked for a fraction of a second as I twisted through the air, dodging his flaming wings as I righted myself and brought my foot down in an aerial axe kick that landed directly on the crown of Riser's head.

With the entirety of my physical strength on top of the momentum from my greatly accelerated fall Riser shot towards the ground at extreme speeds, impacting with all the force of a falling star, shattering the ground for several dozen meters in every direction and sending chunks of earth soaring into the air.

Beating my wings a few times I swiftly reoriented myself in the air taking up Riser's former position as I looked down at my now buried opponent. Considering I probably wouldn't have that many chances to use it and physical reinforcement was super cheap in terms of demonic energy, I decided to charge up a bit of magic during the time it took for Riser to pull himself out of the ground.

Drawing forth as much demonic power as I was confidant in controlling at once (about a fourth of what I had left) I began to charge up as many lightning spells as I could. Sticking to the basic but dependable lightning bolt spell that had become my go to quick cast, I began prepping the spell. Seeing as I was only using one spell -a simple one at that- I was able to create a lot more glyphs that I would otherwise have been able to. In the 15 or so seconds it took Riser to pull himself above ground I had successfully managed to charge up slightly over 100 spell glyphs, which floated in a rough circle with me in the center and hummed ominously with energy.

"y-you" Riser who had just managed to pull himself above out of the hole, stilling looking down as he slowly pushed himself to his feet "bastard" he growled before finally looking up at me and freezing.

Without waiting another moment more than 100 lightning bolts discharged simultaneously at the phoenix without mercy.

While it's said that phoenix's can only be killed by attacks at the level of something in the ultimate class spectrum it doesn't mean that anything below that has no effect, mentally at least. Seeing as the reason ultimate class attacks work is because they leave nothing to regenerate they could be considered instant kill attacks, with something nearing the peak of high class it would be akin to an attack that nearly killed them, even if the damage doesn't stick.

So while what is arguable my strongest attack isn't enough to outright kill Riser, it was still at the degree of being a near death experience. That's not to say I was peak high class unfortunately, in fact it would probably take an attack with around twice the power as the one I just shot off to be considered scraping the bottom of an ultimate class level. This is because the difference between the power of an attack that completely destroys an opponent and one that merely mostly destroys them is actually quite great.

Long story short it's a bit like cleaning, putting in a certain amount of effort will get something mostly clean but it would take several times that amount of effort to get it completely clean.

Descending smoothly, I beat my wings softly before landing silently a few dozen yards away from Riser's location, staring idly at the immense cloud of dirt that had been thrown up in the wake of my attack. A few seconds passed and as the cloud began to settle I shrugged, stowing my blade away in dimensional storage before beginning to slowly walk forward, not even bothering to quiet my footsteps as I crossed the cracked earth towards the partially settled dust cloud.

I could just barely make out the silhouette of someone struggling to their feet in the epicenter of the cloud as I continued walking casually, like someone on a Sunday walk, towards my opponent.

"Y-you bastard," Riser repeated like a broken record, "I'll fucking killed you!" he roared as he found his footing, dashing towards me carelessly as flames poured off of him chaotically.

A grin cemented itself on my face as my opponent approached. While Riser's flames could certainly hurt me if they ever connected on my bare skin, my dragon hide armor wouldn't even get singed slightly from flames of Riser's level. I continued walking forward casually, waiting until Riser was barely a dozen feet from me before moving into range, my foot blurring forwards at speeds far beyond Riser's ability to perceive, landing a brutal kick on Riser's stomach, sending him flying back and onto the ground yet again.

Riser had already flipped himself over onto his stomach and began to push himself up yet again when I interfered, appearing next to him in a blur of speed and bringing my foot down on the back of his head, forcing his face into the dirt with enough force to shatter his skull and indent the ground. The wound healed just a swiftly as the rest as I hooked my leg under his stomach, lifting his body up with my foot and flinging him a few dozen feet into the nearest wall, watching apathetically as he fell on his side with his back against the wall.

"k-kill you…" Riser murmured as he stood up again, facing me with impotent rage as I continued walking casually towards him.

The moment he made to move I blurred towards him, kicking him several feet into the air and back against the wall. I didn't stop there and as his body rebounded off the wall I shot out another kick, then another, then dozens more at high speeds all over his body in an unending storm of fatal blows.

When an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object, what happens? I don't know, but I imagine Riser might know what it's like to be the unlucky son of bitch caught in the middle.

15 seconds passed as I kept up my rain of bone shattering blows. 30 seconds. A minute. 3 minutes. Again and again I turned Riser's entire body into paste mere fractions of a second after it had restored itself as I crushed him again the wall mercilessly.

Another minute passed before, with no warning, I stopped, lowering my foot to the ground as Riser healed again. I reached forward and grabbed the front of his once pristine clothes -now a filthy torn mess- and pulled him towards me, over my shoulder and threw him away from me, watching as he landed in a quivering heap near the center of the arena.

"kill y… "he chanted under his breath "…nna kill you"

I watched, mildly surprised, as Riser stood up and glared at me defiantly.

"Doesn't matter how long it takes" he began, his voice gaining strength, "I am going to kill you" he roared "you can't keep fighting forever," he continued "but I can, and when you tire and run out of steam I'm going to tear you to pieces" he declared viciously.

I lowered my head slightly letting my hair cover my eyes as my face went blank.

As far as I know there are two ways people respond to a seeming unsurmountable problem or opponent. They either lose the will to fight and give in, or they disregard the odds and throw themselves against it with everything they have. It was honestly quite surprising to see that Riser had ended up part of the latter group as compared to the former. In most cases even I would be in for a rather drawn out battle without any guarantee of victory simply due to the fact that I wasn't actually capable of killing my opponent. Sure I could probably keep this up for several days if I abstained from using demonic energy for anything other than physical reinforcement and staving off my mental exhaustion, but beyond that and I would start running on fumes.

I felt my lips twitch upwards.

Yes, typically speaking this would probably be a worst case scenario, but in this case it truly didn't matter. Riser's surprising burst of insurmountable willpower had no more meaning or weight behind it than his elitist insults and supremacist ideals in this case. Yes, while beating Riser into submission would probably have been the best case scenario the truth was I never actually had to beat Riser, or even fight him for that matter.

I grinned, lifting my head slightly to meet Riser's gaze, instinctively mimicking an expression I had seen on Argo's face more times than I cared to remember. A grin that was both cheerful and teasing, confident and predatory. A grin that sent only one message to anyone unfortunate enough to see it.

 _I know something you don't_.

* * *

I would not back down. I'll show this damn reincarnated trash what it means to try and battle an immortal!

I glared at his blank expression, the top half of his face obscured by his overly long hair. A moment passed and just as I thought he might have started to panic inwardly I saw his lips twitch upwards. Not in the manner of someone trying to fake bravado and confidence, but in the manner of someone struggling to keep a straight face when exposed to some wondrous inside joke that is made all the more amusing by the existence of those unable to perceive it.

Another moment passed and he did something that sent shivers down my spine. He grinned. Lifting his head up slightly so that his eyes were visible and yet shadowed by his hair, he grinned in a way that seemed to freeze the blood in my veins. The expression itself was made twice as chilling by one single fact. I had seen it before.

I saw it for the first time 9 years ago when this whole engagement started up, just before the Marchosias heiress -then barely 8 years old- had somehow managed to push back their wedding half a decade from its initial date. I then I saw it again scarcely a year later before my parents told me I now had to beat her in a rating game to actually marry her. Again and again, that same damn expression cropped up and seemed to move what I desired a little bit further away from me, until it was only barely within my reach, until it would only take another tiny nudge and it would be beyond my ability to attain.

I had met with Argo yesterday and told her to give up, told her that one queen with no apparent special abilities was no match for an entire peerage, let alone me. I had expected her to get angry, to glare at me coldly, unable to accept the inevitable, and to return my words with the scorn of a sore loser. Instead, she did the last thing I could have an imagined. She grinned. I left with a scathing parting remark and false bravado in an attempt to hide the chill running down my spine as that damn grinned cropped up once more.

Then, less than half an hour ago I watched as Argo's lone queen casually tore through my entire peerage like they were garbage and once again I knew that grin preceded a nightmare.

As I stared at my lone opponent that damn grinned cropped up again, like a bad dream, it had appeared before me once more, taunting me. The black haired queen's mouth opened and in that moment I wanted nothing more than to kill him, to beat him into the ground, to do anything to stop him from speaking with that damn grin on his face. Yet, while my mind and my instincts screamed at me to stop him from speaking, as if it would somehow stave off what was probably already inevitable, my body froze as his voice -smooth like velvet- ripped and tore its way into my ears.

"With determination like that it might actually be pretty difficult for me to beat you," the black haired queen complemented in a manner that seemed impossibly genuine for what I knew was mockery "but before we get back to fighting, let me ask you a question."

His grin grew a notch

"Who are you going to send to fight in the next round?" he spoke with all the finality of an executioner.

* * *

Confusion flitted across Riser's face as I paused for a moment.

"what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Riser demanded, a hint of uncertainty seeping into his voice as he did so.

I felt my grin grow again as I stared at him before answering, my voice the epitome of respect and helpfulness, "why Phoenix-sama" I began "don't you remember the rules? If you send out pieces of a higher value than Marchosias-sama does, they won't be able to participate in the next round" I began to slowly approach Riser, watching as his face paled slightly.

"As a king you are worth 10 pieces to my 9" I continued "and since not having a participant in a round is instant disqualification you can't just skip it" my grin shifted into something a shade more sadistic "so tell me Phoenix-sama, who are you going to send to fight my master after you tear me to shreds?"

Riser's face was now chalk white as he stood stiffly.

"oh dear" I cried out in false dismay "that's right, isn't it, all Phoenix-sama's pieces have already been defeated or disqualified haven't they. I guess that means this entire fight was for nothing then" I finished in exaggerated disappointment.

"w-what?" Riser shuddered out.

My grin reached Argo level as I tossed aside my façade of respect "you still don't get it?" I laughed "Every single thing since the start of this fight has had no more meaning than a squabble between 3 year olds. From the moment you stepped foot in the Arena to face me, before the first insult that passed your lips, before the first blow was dealt, before the first step had even been taken, you had already lost" I was only about 3 dozen feet away from Riser now, drawing closer and closer with slow easy strides.

"...a..." Riser fumbled, trying to force out something, anything, to deny my statement

26 feet away

"All of your efforts meant nothing, I could have simply surrendered the second the round started if I wanted" I stated simply "the truth is, you were beaten into the ground, stomped upon and made a fool of for 2 simple reasons."

16 feet away

"One, I thought it would be interesting to fight someone considered immortal"

10 feet

"two" I paused "well to be honest, my master wanted to see you get smacked around for the cameras"

"C-cameras" Riser forced out

"Of course, this is being broadcasted, you know"

5 feet

"The great Riser Phoenix, getting smacked around in a fight he never stood a chance of winning" I drawled as I stop scarcely 2 feet in front of him before continuing on in a whisper that only Riser could hear "screaming impotently in rage like a savage, whimpering like a child and generally making a fool of himself, all on camera"

Riser just stood stock still in uncomprehending shock

"Still don't get it?" I mocked cruelly "then let me put it another way." I paused momentarily "Devil's like chess right? Well, and I know this is a bit late, but…"

I moved, drawing my blade from dimensional storage as I circled around Riser, stabbing him through the heart from behind as I moved my mouth directly next to his ear and spoke quietly to him.

"Checkmate"

I twisted the blade and drew it from his back with sheer brute force, watching as small flames flickered around the wound attempting to heal Riser's pieced heart.

The flames struggled, and then, without warning, failed, the back to back mental shocks I had delivered causing more mental damage and discord than Riser could cope with.

A heartbeat later Riser's body disappeared in motes of light as whoever was in charge of them rushed him to the medical ward.

" _Riser Phoenix has been retired, the entirety of Riser Phoenix's peerage has been retired. Argo Marchosias' peerage is the winner"_

As I felt the strange tingling sensation of the arena's teleportation system a single thought crossed my mind for what I somehow knew wouldn't be the last time.

'I really need to stop getting carried away so easily while playing the bad guy'

Seriously? Why the hell did I go ahead and stab him randomly after admitting I'd already won. That was a bit of dick move honestly, even if he probably won't die from it. Somehow I know this is Argo's fault. I don't know how or why, but it's definitely her fault somehow.

* * *

Dramatic monologue. Check. Epic execution. Check. Evil looking color scheme. Didn't even have to do anything, Check.

' _Kii-bou's evil alternate persona is almost perfect'_ a certain totally guilty individual observed as the rating game finished ' _now I just need to get him working on a proper evil laugh and pick up an eyepatch that suppresses his strength that he can remove when he goes into his evil persona (this isn't even my final form!) and it will be perfect! Maybe I could even get him to put a bunch of magic glyphs on his arm and wear bandages over them when they're not in use! Then he can be like "Quiet down, oh my right arm" oh! that would be perfect!'_

Argo Marchosias allowed a smile to light up her face for a moment at both her victory against Riser (which was admittedly already decided way before this) and her continued success at perfecting Kirito's anti-hero slash final boss persona before refocusing on more serious issues.

This was the last point where he father may attempt to interfere. She had already done several things in advance to stack the odds in her favor a bit from making sure the conditions of the match were well known and setting it up so that the results would spread rapidly throughout the underworld.

She didn't have to make it so her father had no method of forcing the marriage on her, no she just had to make sure it wasn't worth it for him to do so. It was one of the few things she appreciated about her father, things like pride meant nothing to him, if something wasn't worth what it would cost he wouldn't push forward to attain it merely to prove he could. If something wasn't worth what it would cost, he would turn his eyes from it in a heartbeat.

She had expended a lot of money to set things up in such a manner that if her father went against their agreement, a lot of people would know. Which would put into question one thing her father valued over money. The trust people had in what he was telling them. For anyone who trades in information it is vital that people believe that you will tell them what they want to know as long as they pay the right price. And while the truth was that family meant nothing to her father, people on the outside would instead see it like this.

'if he would even lie to his own daughter, how the hell can I trust him to be honest with me'

That type of thing would cost her father a lot, undermining the subtle game he had been playing for decades to draw everything of value out of his customers that he could. It was a lot easier to take someone for a fool when they trusted you after all.

She had made her move.

Now, the only thing left for her to do was wait. Wait to see if her father would pull something she'd have to deal with out of his sleeve or if he decides it wasn't worth it and do nothing.

She honestly wasn't sure which she would prefer. On one hand if her father makes a move, it won't be something she can easily counter, on the other hand if he doesn't the question remains, did he really do nothing? Or did he do something she simply didn't notice and there's already a noose wrapped around her neck. That was the level of influence her father held. She couldn't truly stop him from doing anything if he truly desired it to be done. For the time and being, the only thing she could do was try and make it so that he decided it wasn't worth the cost.


	8. Chapter 8

A group of around 2 dozen individuals sat in a richly furnished room, watching the end of a rather quickly thrown together rerun of certain broadcast that few of the room's occupants had bothered watching live with a heavy air of tension suffocating the otherwise extravagant room.

"well… that was… interesting" one of them noted, his words seeming to echo through the room, shattering the silence that had descended upon its occupants.

A scoff, "Interesting, you say? A fully fledged pure-blooded high class devil and his entire peerage just got crushed by some freshly reincarnated upstart and you call it interesting?" someone else replied, his voice tinged with annoyance and a hint of venom. "If some filthy vermin reaching beyond his station is amusing to you why the hell are you here?"

The first man shot a baleful look towards the other before replying "I said it was interesting, not good" he said sharply "but if you mean to tell me such a thing is so common and mundane that it doesn't even reach the level of being interesting then perhaps we should just give up on keeping the system how it should be and accept those fakes as our equals." He continued, his voice literally dripping with spite and disgust.

"If you two are done acting like fools," a third man interjected "then perhaps we can focus on the real issue here. From what we know that upstart has barely been a devil for 6 months, has no sacred gear, and yet still somehow managed to attain enough power to overcome an entire peerage and a high class devil with composure that borders on ease." The man paused for a moment before continuing "rather than arguing amongst ourselves we need to figure out how such a thing is possible, along with figuring out what countermeasures we need to put into motion to prevent this incident from encouraging more upstarts to reach beyond their proper standing." He finished, practically spitting out the last few words.

The narrow-minded, evidently supremacist views that hung thickly to the trio's words wasn't rejected or distained by the room's remaining occupants and was instead met with what could almost be referred to as thoughtless agreement. Rather than being rejected as bigoted, their views were acknowledged and approved almost subconsciously, as if they had just stated something as obvious as 'fire is hot' or 'water is wet', something so blatant and evidently true that agreeing with it required little more than base instinct. The majority of rooms occupants nodded along with the third man's words, some even beginning to propose ideas on the spot.

All of the occupants in the room were pure blooded high class devils, many of whom held positions of authority within the government of the underworld. In this particular case, the reason behind this gathering was unfortunately not nearly as innocent as something along the lines of a gathering of friends or a high society event. The truth was, very few of the people within this room even liked each other, many of them flat out hating many of their compatriots. It was only because of reasons far more sinister and twisted than respect or goodwill that the group remained functional and effective rather than splintering as its members ruthlessly attempted to ruin or discredit each other.

The first of these reasons was rather straight forward. A common enemy. Something they all dreaded and secretly feared so much that they would accept working with those they despised to avert it. While it may not seem too dark of a reason, the identity of that 'enemy' wasn't something like an opponent or the threat of an opposing race. No, as one might have surmised from what several members of the group had expressed, the 'enemy' that this group stood against and opposed was equality. Each and every single person sitting in this room believed that they were intrinsically superior to everything and everyone that was not born a pure-blooded high-class devil. Every one of them believed that reincarnated and even naturally born low-class devils should never become anything beyond the level of laborers, foot soldiers or servants, that they should never so much as think of opposing or surpassing their 'betters' in any aspect.

Unfortunately, this opinion wasn't something could be called uncommon in the upper echelons of the underworld. With the obvious exception of the four Maou, the vast majority of the higher ups in devil society shared similar views, although typically to a lesser extreme than what was displayed by the devils gathered together in this room.

"We should acquire some illegal enhancement drugs, ones that are as dangerous and addictive as we can find." One of the devils suggested "Then we slip that ingrate a triple dose of it, and when he dies from the side effects we can twist the results of the investigation to make it look like the only reason he had half the strength he did was because he'd been taking that drug the whole time."

"And I assume you have the connections and a specialist good enough to pull that off?" another responded caustically "because I'm not risking my life and rightful position on the chance that no one figures out what really happened, not to even mention what might happen even if it was pulled off correctly, that upstart's master is that man's daughter after all. We need a foolproof plan to get rid of or at least discredit that trash that won't explode in our faces, unless one of you idiots are willing to take the fall."

It comes as no surprise that a group united by a selfish cause possessed little in the way of team spirit or unity. In fact, the only reason such a group could form at all was because a certain individual had seen fit to put it together, as yet another group of pawns for him to put to use as he saw fit.

"Then what the hell do you propose we do, if you're so smart" a devil fired back, further stirring the ever rising tension in the room as the discussion grew ever closer to descending into a shouting match.

And just as frayed tempers readied themselves to snap, a voice cut through the room like a scalpel, calm and precise, "Well of course, we do our proper duty as officials and make no move to unjustly hinder the poor boy."

Without exception, every single devil in the room turned their attention to the door, where a man could be seen calmly entering the room. Had that course of action been suggested by anyone else in the room, it would have been met with jeers and mocking, or even flat out disgust for daring to suggest such a thing. Yet, instead of drawing disrespect or distain, the man's words were treated as if they held all the weight of an executioner's blade, mere moments from falling.

In a handful of seconds -with nothing more than a few words and his mere presence- the man had reduced a group of exceedingly prideful individuals into a herd of spineless sheep, had crushed their once arrogant expressions into those of timid child's, had sundered their once prideful gazes into nothing, as their eyes peered downwards, unable to so much as meet his gaze.

"We do our proper duty," Damon Marchosias repeated himself as he walked towards the head of the table, his footsteps echoing in the silent room "and don't obstruct the progress of my daughter's new servant, in fact…" he trailed off talking a seat at the head of the table and shifting his gaze back to the devils in front of him "we'll even go so far as to help him along his way." Damon stated, his voice emotionless.

This was, of course, the aforementioned second reason why such a group remained intact, the involvement of one Damon Marchosias. With no exceptions, the elder Marchosias had every single devil in the room at his complete mercy. It was their secrets, their lies, the scandals they hadn't hidden quite well enough, and the deaths they hadn't quite managed to distance themselves far enough away from that came together to form the strings that kept the puppets in this room dancing to Damon's tune. The knowledge that if they displeased him, he could strip them of their positions, their fortunes, and often even their very lives with the slightest bit of effort quietly hung over their every action and faintly haunted their every thought.

"H-help him?" a devil stuttered in surprised before his eyes widened in panic "n-not that I'm q-questioning you L-lord Marc-chosias i-t's j-just" he fumbled.

"Yes" Damon confirmed, not even glancing at the other devil "In fact, we might even go so far as ensuring that young Kirito qualifies for the mid-class promotion exam a few weeks from now" he continued "and with talent like his, it wouldn't be too surprising if he qualified for the high-class promotion exams not too long after that. Reaching high class so quickly without a sacred gear would doubtlessly inspire and draw the awe and admiration of countless low class devil's." his voice sent chills down the spine of everyone present.

"w-what?"

Damon eyes sharpened as he glared at the gathering of devils for a moment, causing them to shrink further into their seats as he did so. "Of course -tragically enough- with the state between the 3 factions as it is it wouldn't be too surprising if some enterprising war monger decided that killing off a new rising star might be just the spark needed to set off another war." Damon murmured, as if lamenting a tragic possibility, as if he wasn't deliberately arranging the events that would make that possibility reality "Not that it would work, of course, considering who the leaders of the 3 factions are, even if some poorly rendered information were to leave such an opening for that warmonger's plan to succeed in the first place, that is." He continued, his voice turning almost morose "but it would still further alienate the 3 factions from each other, tragically, although it may come to serve as a worthwhile lesson in the end; that no matter how talented or gifted you are… if you try to climb too high or too quickly, then in the end, you'll only have earned yourself a greater fall to your own death." He finished, his voice like poison.

The faces of the surrounding devils brightened slightly "B-brilliant Lord Marchosias, we'll see to it immediately" one devil managed, before flinching as Damon shifted his gaze towards him.

"See to what?" Damon inquired coolly as he began standing up slowly "we've done nothing but ponder upon mere hypotheticals and what events might lead to their realization, if one were so inclined" he finished with a pointed look at those around him. Without another word Damon Marchosias left the room, leaving only deathly silence in his wake.

Of course, what is possibly the greatest evidence of the caliber of the threat Damon represented is the fact that although he had, in reality, set in motion a plot to murder a young man, even a complete word for word recording of the meeting would give little to no court worthy evidence as to his guilt in the matter. This was how the man known as Damon Marchosias operated within the dark side of the supernatural world, never truly ordering something to be done, never freely declaring his objectives, or directly removing an adversary. He simply … encouraged … certain opinions on things, merely pondered aimlessly on what might occur in response to certain events, and innocently lamented some tragedy that could end up occurring. He made it clear to his pawns what he wanted to be done and in what method he desired it to be done without ever saying it clearly and then… he simply let the fear his tools had been so deeply branded with push them into action, let it push them to take the risks he saw no need to take himself, and in the end, if something went astray, he merely watched impartially as yet another fool met death for his own ambitions.

The devils that belonged to this nameless group represented nothing but a small fragment of the list of people that had learned of Damon's nature just a bit too late and while many believed they might be able to kill him and escape from his clutches, they all believed -but would never admit- that Damon was capable of what they were not. Believed that he held the capability to hold back the tide and reverse the change that had slowly been eroding away their view of the perfect underworld and restore it to its former glory. Believed that for all he treated them as expendable pawns and tools that he held the same beliefs they did foremost in his heart. It was because they had come to believe this, come to believe that Damon truly shared their ideals, that they had ended up freely throwing away whatever little chance they had to free themselves.

* * *

'Fools' as the elder Marchosias left the room behind he couldn't help but direct a small spark of disdain towards his tools, hidden as it was behind his emotionless features, 'unable to even understand that it's better to be a baron of an empire than the chieftain of some lowly tribe' a faint grin, more the result of deliberately ingrained habits than genuine emotion, appeared on his face 'after all, that way you can still cut your way to the top with enough effort and care'.

It all truth, something like blood purity or noble right meant nothing to Damon. It didn't matter if he had been born a peasant or the son of Satan, he would have still cut his way to the top, one way or another, so why should he care about it in the slightest. If someone had a use then he would use them, regardless if they were a prince or a pauper, and his daughter's new toy certainly had the potential to be a most useful piece. At the end of the day if a pawn reached the end of a chess board and became a queen it's true nature changed little, in the end it was merely a more valuable pawn whose sole purpose was to lay its life down for the sake of the king.

He knew that his influence and control over the underworld's government was only as valuable as the power that devil kind as a whole held within the world. If the underworld grew stronger than his own power would grow proportionally on a global stage. Holding back and weakening what could otherwise be the underworld's primary source of growth was akin to a king burning down peasant's crops because he felt they were too good at growing food. In the end it would be that king's country that would go hungry, just as much as those peasants.

He had only worded it as he did to make sure those fools did their work properly. A slave that willingly works themselves to their own death is more efficient than one that must be whipped constantly. With those fools believing he shared their 'glorious vision' they freely carried out their duties as pawns, unaware that their actions often did little to propagate their beliefs. In all honesty, the little he had gathered on his daughter's queen suggested the boy would probably throw himself into dangerous situations even without being targeted, making the promotion a non-factor in that regard. The boy becoming a high-class devil would do nothing more than create a chance for more pawns to be made available for play along with a greater level of prestige for the Marchosias household. The fact that his daughter would likely end up viewing it as an opening move for his retaliation only meant her attention wouldn't be directed in other, more significant, directions.

More importantly, his daughter's momentary slip up during the rating game combined with his rather short meeting with the black haired queen had quickly revealed a rather valuable thing to Damon. His daughter Argo was emotionally attached to the boy, just as the boy was emotionally attached to her. This of course meant that anything he held over one of them could be used to equal, if not greater, effect upon the other. While he was actually slightly surprised at how greatly the emotional leash he had wrapped around daughter's throat had rotted away in a paltry 3 years of non-interference, he only had to wait patiently for a situation where the morally correct solution and the legally correct one differed to grasp a new foothold and set about curbing the two under his heel. It would take a bit of effort, admittedly, but as tools the two were quite high quality, his daughter possessing a number of his own skills to a lesser extent and the boy possessing at least ultimate class level combat potential, just waiting to be realized.

Even prior to the rating game he had been aware that his daughter's new servant was a non-standard, although admittedly he hadn't though it was to this extent. In the 2 and a half years his daughter had spent within the death game known as Sword art online he had taken the liberty of performing some minor alterations to her evil pieces. While Ajuka Beelzebub's evil piece system was far too complex for even him to freely manipulate, he had still managed to succeed in inducing several minor adjustments to them. Minor adjustments that had informed him of her failure to reincarnate someone for a single pawn on a day around 6 months ago. Adjustments that had informed him of her subsequent failures to reincarnate someone for 2 pawns, and 3 pawns, all the way up to 8 pawns, all failures, just barely not enough. Adjustments that had allowed him to interfere with her attempt to reincarnate someone for two rooks by temporarily lowering the functional efficiency of her two rook pieces, simulating a compatibility failure and forcing her to use the one evil piece he knew she'd never manage to trade away. Adjustments… that had informed him of her successful reincarnation of an individual that had required 98% of the available power within her Queen piece, the 9 pawn value being only just barely enough for a successful reincarnation.

He had made a slight error in his calculations at his point, for the first time in a long while, in partially factoring the extreme evil piece cost to his daughter's weakened state from her 2 and a half years in an effective coma putting her new piece's value at maybe a high 5 or low 6 without this factor. Powerful yes, but ultimately not a game changing piece, in the short term anyway. While it was indeed true her power and hence her ability to reincarnate others was indeed weakened at this time, he had, in retrospect, failed to account for the fact that the person she was reincarnating could be in a similar state. While his daughter's power had dropped during the 2 and a half years she was within the death game, the boy who would become her queen was in a similar state and as a human he had not even come close to a full recovery with just the time between his escape from SAO and eventual resurrection as a devil.

For a human having gone through a 2-and-a-half-year coma aside from their weakened physical state, a number of other supernatural aspects would have been weakened. Even with his short recovery time, the flow of his life force would have still been weakened and his innate, then dormant, mana reserves would have shrunken from both unavoidable malnutrition and the lack of various subconscious stimulations humans unwittingly provided simply by living their day to day lives. In short, the boy's own weakness and health issues at the time had ended up lowering his evil piece cost to the point that Argo's own reduced power was effectively negated.

So it was that at the rating game, rather than a queen simply impressive combat prowess for a 6-month old devil, the one that showed up was a monster that seemed intent on disregarding the concept of common sense, with power befitting the 9 pieces it had required to bring him back.

It was slightly disappointing that the marriage contract with the Phoenix clan would be annulled because of it but in the end that was only something he felt would net him a few decent benefits: cheaper and more direct access to phoenix tears, influence within the Phoenix clan, and additionally -with Rias Gremory's own engagement- an angle with which to influence the child that would become the Gremory clan's next heir or heiress alongside being directly related to one of the Maou from a very young age. Of course, 2 of those benefits required him to have a level of influence that he currently didn't possess over Argo, seeing as she would be the one in close contact with those prospective children -as one of Riser's wives- and hence best able to shape their young views and opinions.

All in all, although he had put up a front during the rating game to lower his daughter's guard, Damon was quite content with the outcome of the rating game. Currently, he only had a single ultimate class individual under his thumb, gaining a second one would be much more valuable than his daughter's marriage with Riser would ever be. Seeing as the boy would likely still need a number of years to climb his way up to ultimate class and how even then he would be looked at by most higher ranking devils as an upstart Damon would have plenty of time and numerous chances to get the boy under his thumb before he gathered any significant political clout. Even disregarding combat uses, an ultimate class devil can have major benefits in regards to political sway and intimidation factor.

This was, of course, a long term issue. Trying to pluck a fruit out of a tree before it was ripe would serve no purpose. So, for the moment, Damon would do nothing beyond what he had already set in motion, content to let other play out their plays and work towards their petty goals while he slowly set himself up to slit their throats.

The hollow, emotionless grin on Damon's face gained a vindictive spark, ever so faint, and yet quiet possibly the most genuine display of emotion he had given in several years.

* * *

Sitting within the partially full booth that had been set aside for the younger high class devils and their peerages Rias Gremory could help but murmur in disbelief "They actually did it." She paused "I knew her queen was strong but I still thought Riser's immortality would pose some level of a threat to them, but she made it a nonfactor before it even came into play."

A short laugh filled the room "You don't seem to surprise with how power Argo's Queen is." A cheerful voice noted "I'm pretty sure I can't consider my dear Kuisha to be the strongest queen out of the young devils anymore, at this point" he admitted, his voice completely void of anything even remotely approaching disappointment "in fact, I might have to ask Argo if she'll let me spar with her Queen -kirito was it? - sometime soon."

The Gremory heiress huff in slight exasperation "still as much of a fight junky as ever Sairaorg. You could try and seem at least remotely surprised or cautious at the fact that Argo's new servant reached S-class combat prowess in 6 months you know."

The Bael heir just laughed again "He doesn't look like a bad guy, not to mention that he seems to have a similar belief to me in regards to training."

Rias looked unamused "and how did you come to that conclusion".

Stilling smiling unrepentantly Sairaorg explained "you don't get that strong in 6 months without some serious training, regardless of how talented you are, and he was considerate enough to hold back to avoid permanent injuries during the rating game, even if he did get oddly serious against that one duel wielder for some reason." He trailed off for a moment "anyway, judging by how he moved and attacked during his fight with Riser, he could have done a lot more damage to Riser's servants if he felt like it. Although it looks like he can still be ruthless if he needs to be."

"He did unnecessarily stab Riser at the end, even after he'd already admitted he'd won, not that that bastard didn't deserve it." Rias agreed.

Sairaorg laughed again, turning to face Rias with a smile "As unnecessary as it might have been it was quite impressive, in way."

Rias raised an eyebrow "Stabbing a stuttering mess is impressive how exactly?"

"Not necessarily the stab, but rather the timing and setup behind it." Sairaorg explained "Although I'm not sure if the guy himself realized it, but the way he pulled that off was befitting of a master assassin." Sairaorg paused before beginning to count off on his fingers "Removing a target from a favorable position, putting them off balance, concealing his weapon, and keeping the target's attention trained on something else right up until the killing blow. While Argo may have provided the information and strategy behind that particular win, that Kirito guy was still the one who had to read the mood and mental state of his opponent for the mental impact to end up being that severe."

Rias stared at the Bael heir for a moment "Aren't you supposed to be a muscle head?" she complained dryly, no real heat in her words.

Sairaorg just laughed "This is just something comes with the ability to read opponents, and on that note, you should probably thank Argo the next time you see her."

Rias shot him a confused expression.

"Whether it was deliberate or not, the way this battle ended leave an opening for you during yours considering how it ended for Riser" the Bael heir explained.

Rias nodded "Right, with this Riser has actually lost a match he didn't lose on purpose."

Sairaorg nodded "that, and with the specific way it ended for him -with his immortality failing in the face of what would have been a lethal wound outside of a rating game- something that probably become less and less prominent to him since his immortality matured has suddenly become real again." Sairaorg continued "Death. It'll probably take him a bit to get over his first near death experience and that should mean the power of his immortality should take a steep dive for quite some now."

Rias blinked, before nodding hesitantly "alright… I'll keep that in mind." She murmured glancing over at her peerage and stopping upon its newest member, a blonde haired former nun named Asia who had joined them just a few days ago, her thoughts drifting away from the present.

It had begun about a week and a half ago, a couple of days after Argo and her queen had left for the capitol. When Rias had asked why they were leaving so early Argo had begun to talk about something along the lines of needing enough time for the 'compulsory pre-tournament mini-arc' before Kirito had covered her mouth with his hand and deadpanned 'sightseeing'.

Her friend's eccentric tendencies aside, it was around that time that Issei had apparently ended up meeting with a nun and befriending her, the nun in question was of course Asia herself. The culmination of events had eventually led to Issei facing and defeating his former killer (with surprising ease once he got a hold of himself) as well as Asia becoming the newest member of the Gremory peerage. With the addition of a healer, Riser's own weakened state as well as the results of her peerage's training -however slight-, things were actually starting to look pretty good for her match against Riser.

Yet despite this, she couldn't really bring herself to be proud of herself. Of her peerage and their progress yes, but she couldn't help but feel that most of the remaining risk and danger was present solely because of her previously lackluster performance as a King. Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko had been part of her peerage for years and if she and the others had trained the way they were training now during those years she had no doubt that they would have been able to wipe the floor with Riser. Yet as it was it hurt her pride to now that people considered in necessary to help her overcome riser, and it hurt even more to know that she probably needed that help. While she couldn't change the past, she could shape the future.

In the face of Argo's victory, Rias Gremory renewed her resolve once more as her peerage (mostly Issei) attempted to disregard the horrible chills and phantom pains already running through their bodies, attempting to convince themselves that their master's training wasn't, in fact, about to get even more excessive. They were not successful.

* * *

Kirito felt the teleportation after affects fade as he found himself in a well-furnished, yet homely, room. Deciding to refrain from taking a seat, Kirito began to wait for Argo's arrival, aware that he would likely just get lost if he tried to leave by himself. After a few minutes he felt a surge of magic behind him and he tensed momentarily before a familiar voice yelled out from behind him and he relaxed.

"You did it!" Argo called out as Kirito turned to face her with a grin.

Kirito just managed to catch sight of Argo bolting towards him before she leapt at him, her arms spread wide as she engulfed him in a hug that -had Argo not been almost a full head shorter than Kirito- would have satisfied the requirements for the male-protagonist-suffocating-in-a-female-lead's-chest event. As it was, Argo's head just managed to clear Kirito's shoulder as she clung to him, laughing cheerfully as she rested her chin on his left shoulder, her feet hanging a few inches above the ground as she did so.

Having caught the mousy girl on reflex, Kirito froze in surprise for a moment before deciding to just return the hug with a lighthearted smile. Argo had always been a rather physically affectionate person, the black haired queen reasoned, it's not really surprising that she'd be a bit over affectionate after that after being freed from something that had hung over her head for such a long time now.

Feeling Kirito tighten his arms around her slightly Argo's laughter petered off slightly as she tightened her own hold on the boy, her eyes closed with a perfectly content smile on her face. After a few moments the mousy devil gave her queen one last squeeze before loosening her grip, releasing Kirito and softly dropping back onto her own feet, a warm smile still firmly on her face. For a moment the duo did nothing, content to merely bask in their victory for a few more moments before Argo cheerfully broke the silence.

"Well, my loyal queen, it is time we headed off!" she chirped, as Kirito shook his head ruefully, lightly amused at his master's antics.

"As you command my king" Kirito replied, deciding to humor his friend in her long awaited moment.

Argo smiled making her way towards the room's teleport glyph with Kirito right behind her. As the two stopped upon the glyph Argo paused, a conflicted look crossing her face for a second before she appeared to steel herself. Fully facing a confused Kirito, Argo gripped the collar of his jacket and pulled his face towards her own.

"Argo? What are you…" the confused boy asked.

In lieu of answering Kirito's question Argo smiled warmly at him before speaking "Thank you Kirito, for this, and for everything else you've done for me."

As the teleport glyph charged and motes of light began to dance across the duo's forms Argo Marchosias firmly pressed her lips against Kirito's for a few short, ephemeral, seconds before separating from him just as the teleport glyph activated and they were transported away.

Kirito blinked, still rather shell-shocked as he found himself standing in a crowded lobby with Argo rushing ahead of him towards the exit. He stood stock still for a moment before he was called back to reality by his friend(?) calling back to him cheerfully.

"Hurry up Kirito! We've still got a few more spots to see in the capitol before we head back to Kuoh tomorrow." His master called backed even as she hurried ahead of him.

Blinking again Kirito pressed his fingers to his lips for a moment before sighing helplessly and setting off after his master "Slow down a bit, we still have all day" he cried, his heart hammering in chest as he struggled to keep his face from turning red.

Kirito knew he was a genius. He could handle life or death battles or complex magical equations easily. Girls on the other hand? Well, for the first time since he became a devil, Kirito felt that he was well and truly doomed, if not in the classical sense. As he hurried after his master and friend (girlfriend?) he got the distinct impression that his life just got a lot more complicated. And seeing as this was coming from someone who had spent the last 3 years of his life beating a death game, getting involved in cyber warfare against a gaming company holding his friends hostage, getting shot to death and then being reincarnated as a supposedly evil mythical creature, that was saying something.

Yet for all that he knew that his life was probably going to get a hell of a lot more difficult, for some reason, he couldn't seem to crush the stupid grin that had cemented itself on his face.

* * *

 **Hi everyone! Sorry this took me so long but please remember I am college student with all that that entails. I have somewhat limited free time and with finals coming up this has ended up eating up even more of my free time.**

 **With this chapter Argo ended up making the first move on our favorite now slightly less oblivious swordsman. The next chapter should see the introduction of several of the other girls as well as the revelation of the twists i made for my own petty amuseme-*cough* I mean the plot of the story (innocent look) so look forward to it.**

 **I'm thinking of making it a running gag that whenever Kirito does something particularly ridiculous it somehow ends up spurring on Rias to escalate the intensity of her own peerage's training. I feel like I could put together some funny scenes based on that, especially once Issei and the rest of the Gremory group (barring Rias, of course) realize exactly what is causing the seeming randomly escalations to their already hellish training program.**

 **until next time,**

 **bye**


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